


By These Animals I Gift You Hope

by Miriage



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (eventual smut), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Based Loosely off of Animal Parade, Dirk's a farmer, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Harvest Moon AU, He's basically the Wizard, Hurt/Comfort, Jake is the "embodiment of hope", Jake vs. his never ending pile of tomes, M/M, Magic, Mind Control/Mind Manipulation, Or Is he?, Romance, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:54:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miriage/pseuds/Miriage
Summary: “My name is Dirk,” he says softly, “A witch sent me here to investigate the disappearance of hope. If you Mr. Wizard have or had anything to do with it…” His tone is dark and his voice is grating when he says the next four words,“I will find out.”(A Harvest Moon inspired fairytale in which a lonely Wizard screws up and his only chance of fixing everything is a farmer who has a secret or two up his sleeve.)





	1. Wind, Hope, and Farmer

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to "By These Animals I Gift You Hope." It's an idea that's been rolling in my head ever since I saw Gale from Harvest Moon Animal Parade and was like "Damn, Jake would make a good Gale." I mean come one! The Wizard-look with that one braided side hair thing would look GREAT on Jake. But I digress. I do have some fears about publishing this though. But I will push them away! At least until they come back and start yelling at me in voices that sound like angry tumblr people! 
> 
> Also, please someone help me edit. The time is 2:13 in the morns.
> 
> 10/24/17: edited one word that was out of place

You were born from rose leaves, dill, and the breath from the Wind.

The Wind was who you first saw when you opened your eyes. He had looked at you as if you were the center of the world and had whispered words to you that you did not understand. You had tried to reply but your tongue did not work properly and sounds akin to that of the crunching of leaves fell from your lips. 

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he had said as you chocked and coughed over your own voice. 

He clothed you in a tunic of brown and robes of green, “To match your eyes,” he muttered. He clipped your long hair with a pair of silver blades, “To match mine,” he said. He confessed he did not know any other ways to style hair. You told him, with a crackle in your voice, that you did not mind.

He showed you around your home, your island, “It’s empty now,” he said sadly. “It has just been born after all. But soon,” he turned to face you, “Soon it will be filled.” When you asked him how he knew all he did was smile and said it was because you were there. 

 

He called you the embodiment of _hope_.

* * *

 

He spends the following centuries teaching you how to use your body and your voice. You could tell he was frustrated at your lack of understanding and your lack of skill. You would stumble in your steps and your sentences were never as clear as his, but the Wind was blessed with a skill that made teaching you bearable: he had understanding. And with his understanding, his frustrations melted away and were time and time again replaced with kindness.

When you struggled, he was there to help you. When you became confused, he was there to guide you. When you would brush tears of disappointment from your eyes he was there to kiss your cheeks and tell you that you were special. “You are _hope_ after all,” he told you. “And if there’s one thing _hope_ is known for, it’s the ability to give us something to believe in.”

 

He then smiled and whispered softly, “I believe in you.”

* * *

 

After what the Wind tells you has been a long time, you finally become the master of your own body. Your voice, though different from the Wind’s, can now finally keep up with his stories and jokes. Your body, no longer tripping and falling, can now jump and leap around the land. Sometimes, if you concentrated really hard, you could even fly with the Wind in his domain. All too soon, it is you who is shaking him awake and asking for adventures and explorations. He’d shoot you a glare every time you shook him from his clouds and asked him to race you. “Please?” you would beg and he would roll his blue eyes and agree to “Just one race,” which soon became two, then three, then four.

One day, after you had spent a full day just racing him, the Wind floated to the ground and leaned back against a birch tree. “I’m becoming too old for this,” he says in what sounds like a weary yet teasing voice. “Can’t keep up with you anymore.”

 

You ask him what getting “old” meant but the Wind, to your surprised, does not answer you.

* * *

 

The island where you were conceived and where you live is large.

There is a dark emerald forest in which you were born out of and a forest of pitch black, which you often explored. There are caves with glittering stones and caves with only hot springs. There are beaches and large open plains of green grass fir for crops and animals,

And there is one, very tall, very steep mountain, who’s top is flat and engraved with markings of swirls.When you first came across it, you had been on the back of the Wind, your mind too spent and too tired to concentrate on flying yourself. You had asked him, in a sleepy voice, what it was.

 

“My altar,” the Wind had answered you proudly, pointing out the swirls, which were in fact his carved insignia. “I built it myself.”

 

You ask him why he would need an altar but, to your surprise, the Wind does not answer you again.

* * *

 

After you had finally mastered your body and your words the Wind gives you heavy objects with thin long leaves that could move from left to right. They were bound in the center of by a string that you could not see but must have been there because…how else would the whole device stick together? You marvel at the ingenuity of it and ask the Wind what it is. “A gift,” he answers, smiling at your wide-eyed curiosity. “From a friend.” He tells you it’s called a book. A tome actually. You flip the leaves (“Pages,” the Wind corrects) back and forth and recognize some of the letters though you have never seen them before. You look up at him and ask him why he would need books when he was always flying in the sky. “Where would you put them?” you asked.

 

The Wind shakes his head. “It’s not for me actually,” he confesses, “These are for you.”

 

Your eyes widen and you stare back down at the tomes before looking up at the Wind again. “All?” you ask, “All for me? But there are so many…” you whisper. There are indeed many, each thick with pages and dusty from lack of use. “Are you sure?” 

The Wind nods. There’s a sadness in his eyes that you have only seen three times as he confesses that from today on, you must learn all you can from these books _alone_. He tells you that learning all you could would help you with your life’s purpose. “It will be difficult,” he says, “But you are the only one who can decipher these texts. You are the only one who can learn from these. You _must_ teach yourself.” There’s a hitch in his voice when he tells you that this is the purpose of your creation, and that this is what he meant by you being _hope._

“I breathed the last of my sister’s ‘life’ into you,” he whispers, “You were born form _hope_ and _hope_ I want you to return.” He then reaches over, takes your face in his two palms, and kisses you softly on your head.

 

“I believe in you.” 

* * *

 

The first people do come, like the Wind had said.

They come from the ocean, as if they were born from its opaque blue and gold waves. At first their crafts, which looked like hallowed-mismatched trees with giant white leaves (“Boats,” the Wind corrects, “They’re called boats and sails.”) were nothing more than a speck in the horizon, one that you did not even bother questioning. But they had soon grown to colossal sizes, bigger than both you and the Wind and definitely bigger than you could ignore.

Then they land, at the foot of the island, on the sandy beaches.

You could tell immediately that these people are nervous. They stumbled across everything as they walked. The women and men held tightly to their children, their eye wide. They hardly ventured into the forest and stuck close to the beaches and the surrounding green plains. They held blades of minerals and used them to swing down on healthy trees, breaking them so that they could build what the Wind called “houses.”

* * *

 

Two seasons was all it took for them to begin arguing to each other in harsh voices. The men yelled, the women yelled, the children cried. They did not have a leader. They were confused. They were exasperated. They were scared.

The Wind looked scared too, but for a different reason. You would spend nights watching him watch the villagers from the sky, biting his lip and brushing his hands against the snow-filled clouds. “They will not survive the winter in the state they are in,” he mutters. “Not unless they find something to believe in.”

You do not like the look on his face. It is a look that makes you think of the baby forest creatures that hide from the mountain lions. It makes you want to turn your away and cry.

It makes you want to help the Wind.

* * *

 

You “meet” a human two days after.

She is small, wide eyed and looks absolutely helpless. You have never seen anything like her before. She reminds you of the newly born fawn or the young cub, confused without their mother. She does not see you but that does nothing to quell the strings in your heart that become pulled with a want to _help._ You hide behind the trees until she leaves back to her ill formed village, realizing for the first time what this, what your _hope_ , was supposed to be.

 

“Something to believe in…”

 

You wonder if this was what the Wind had felt, watching from them all from his clouds.

You do not show yourself to her or to the villagers but instead call to the animals closest to you to help you. They follow you deep into the forest and you pile fruits, nuts, seeds, fish from the lakes, cotton and lumber onto their broad backs. You kiss each of them on their foreheads, chanting a blessing you taught yourself from your tomes. They glow golden with your _hope_ and you send them to the village. You watch from the forest as they parade in and note the collective stares of awe from the villagers. You note the way the men stop fighting to stare and the children stop crying to stare. You also notice, in confusion, the tears shed by some of the people. Tears from your gifts. Tears of happiness.

They survive that first winter and come spring you find them all healthy and happy, brimming with _hope._ The Wind is ecstatic with joy. He flies around you and hugs you, again and again. “You did it,” he breathes into your ear. “You brought them _hope_. You brought them something to believe in.” He cups your face in his hands, “You are amazing.”

You feel yourself become heated with an unknown pleasure that spreads from your cheeks to the tips of your toes. You let him press his lips against your forehead and enjoy how the heat in you spreads to where he kissed as well.

* * *

 

To your surprise, the villagers find a way to honor you.

Once a season, on the day that you first gave your gifts, the villagers piled flowers and treasured items on the backs of their cows, horses, sheep, and pigs, and walked them through the town, imitating what you had once done. To this the Wind is also ecstatic. “You should feel proud,” he tells you when the two of you watch the curious spectacle. “You have made a tradition.”

They call the tradition “Animal Parade."

* * *

 

The years pass by.

Your Wind flies over the village, pushing away the storms with his breath and ruffling the villager’s hair. You are still young and are still learning from your tomes, still sending in gifts to the village when times get tough, but you are wiser than you were the day the Wind gave you life. Wiser and more in tune with the villagers than the Wind is and ever was. As if recognizing your new knowledge, the Wind begins to ask you more and more pressing questions. Questions that you find yourself struggling to answer.

 

“What do these people’s lives mean to you?” he asks you one day, “What makes you continue to watch them even after you saved them?”

 

You find yourself hesitating and searching for an answer. You do not know what their lives mean to you. You had felt something in you that told you to help them _hope_ , but you did not know and could not place the feeling.

It’s no surprise that after that, you find yourself becoming interested in the villagers and all their quirks. You find yourself walking from your forest to the edge of the town, leaning forward on tiptoes to see if you could spot the villagers. You find yourself clinging to the Wind’s back in the air, begging for him to fly lower so you could see the town. A curious wish of becoming closer to them plants itself in your mind and you can’t help but wonder each night what it would be like to know them.When you ask your Wind about this wish he becomes giddy with excitement.

 

“It’s because you want something, he says, to your confused face. “You have _wants._ “

 

You do not understand him and ask instead what you should do about this wish of yours. “Honor it of course!” the Wind exclaims. “This is your _hope_ speaking out! You must honor it!” 

* * *

 

The following season you and the Wind begin construction on your house. It’s different from the forest and different from the clouds, but you had told the Wind that if you wanted to learn about the villagers you should try to at least live like them. The two of you built your house together, at the dead of night, near the edge of the town in a location both noticeable and unnoticeable. It’s fun almost, and working with the Wind sends something coursing down your body in excitement.The Wind smiles at your finished project.

 

“Very nicely done,” he complements, “You should feel proud.”

 

You smile, telling him that you did indeed felt proud. “I could not have done it without you,” you say. “All of this.” Taking his hand in yours, you kneel and kiss the back of the Wind’s palm. “Thank you,” you whisper.

It is the first time in your entire life that you have ever kissed the Wind. 

* * *

 

The year after that something changes.

The village, no longer teetering on the edges of survival, has finally begun to flourish. New shops, new residents, new everything begins to pour in from the beaches so much so that the villagers construct a dock for the ships. That’s when a new couple enters the island.

They take the fields closest to the seaside. They plant fruits and vegetables, they raise animals, and they argue and bicker all the time yet they hold each other close at night. They soon become the island’s most prominent “farmers.”

And the Wind takes interest in them.

He visits them daily, flying above them, wondering about them, and asks you questions concerning them. “What are they like?” he asks. “Are they okay?” “How are they adjusting?” You are curious as to why the Wind is curious but you do not question him.

Instead, you decide to help him.

You open your doors and allow your house to become a shop in the town, borrowing the spells from your tombs and using the _hope_ in you. The villagers are surprised by your appearance but welcome you nonetheless. “The more the merrier!” they tell you, handing you welcome gifts of teas (which you would later learn you enjoyed immensely) and coffees (which you would later learn to be bitter, dark, and disgusting without sugar.) You appreciated their kindness and had smiled, thanking them for their gifts and promising to help them best you could. They had all smiled back at you in return, making your heart beat a little faster and your cheeks become a little redder.

Your spells or what the villagers call your “fortunes” pleases them and soon they begin to call you their town’s very own “Wizard.” You accept the title with grace.

* * *

 

The couple begins to visit you as well. The taller man has a sharp tongue and eyes the color of red storms. He scares you at first, with his silver edged words and harsh gestures that you have never seen a village use before, but he asks the most innocent questions.

“Did I hurt my husband’s feelings?” No, he did not. “Am I too tough on my animals?” No, he is not. “Do I even deserve to be with him?” Yes, yes he does.

You tell this to the Wind, laughing as you recount the man’s innocence. “It’s unlike I have ever seen before,” you say. “He has the rage of a bull yet the softness of a rabbit! Half the time I can’t make heads or tails of him.”

The Wind had just nodded at your words.

* * *

 

The shorter man’s tongue is more relaxed yet he speaks more about nothing. His hair is light and almost blinding yet his eyes are the color of the setting sun. Like the taller man, he asks innocent questions yet unlike the taller man, his are laced with sadness.

“Does he know how much I love him?” Yes, yes he does. “Are our crops going to die this winter?” No, no they won’t. “Are you sure he knows I love him?” Yes, yes he does.

You also tell this to the Wind yet are more somber when you do so. “He knows too much about time,” you tell him. “He knows that nothing will last. It nags on his mind and keeps him up at night.” You sigh and tell the Wind that you’re glad he has the taller man. “It’s the only thing keeping him alive.”

* * *

 

The Wind’s interest seems to escalate from there.

Each morning as you trekked to your “Wizard shop” you could see the Wind peeking through the clouds, hoping to get a glimpse of the two. He’s curious and you do not know why. You do not question it though.

The seasons roll by and the couple’s garden flourishes and their animals grow strong. The couple is still attached, still close, still together despite their words of hate towards each other. The words are laced with something else though. Something warm at first that slowly grows into something scorching. You feel it even from your distant home. You feel it riding on the back of the _hope_ that has seeped into the town. You ask the Wind what it was.

 

“Love,” he says, his voice sounding sad for a reason you do not know. “They are in love.” 

* * *

 

Winter then comes and it is a winter your Wind weeps over because he could not stop it. It is one that even at his most powerful he could not push away. It kills many. It weakens many.

It gets to the taller man.

He is buried by early Spring.

* * *

 

The shorter man loses something after that. He gazes at the fields as if they were nothing. He lets his animals run loose and grow lazy. He is a shell of himself and spends days kneeled in front of the taller man’s grave.

Your _hope_ cannot reach him.

You tell this to the Wind, expressing your concern. You have seen cases where you could not help and they had always upset you. Always made you feel useless. But you had told yourself that this was how life was sometimes. Sometimes, _hope_ could not be there because that “something” to believe in wasn’t there. And to the shorter man, that “something” had passed away.

That’s when the Wind visits him.

* * *

 

The Wind and the shorter man become close.

You watch them sometimes from your “Wizard shop.” Your Wind tries his best to cheer the man up, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. The shorter man at first tries to pull away from the Wind but time and time again you would find the two, sharing stories or making jokes, and you find yourself watching the shorter man smile again. Your Wind saves him before he falls into a despair even your _hope_ could not save him from. 

Yet the shorter man still misses the taller. You can see that in the way he keeps his distance from the Wind. You could see it in the way he pulls back every time the Wind tries to touch him.

He makes your Wind sad and you hate seeing your Wind sad. 

* * *

 

One night, before you were about to retire to bed, the shorter man arrives at your doorstep and asks if you could contact the dead. You frown and confess you never tried before. “I can if you want me to,” you say, “But are you sure-?”

 

“Please,” he begs, cutting you off, “I’m sure I just…. fuck I really need to talk…. _Please._ ”

 

It’s not hard finding a spell to locate the dead and it’s not hard finding the one the shorter man is searching for. “What does he say?” the shorter man asks, “Please tell me. Tell me what he wants to tell me but can’t. Please Mr. Wizard I need to know.”

You can feel the taller man poking at your mind as the shorter man speaks. You can feel him gripping you with cold fingers and whispering into your ear what he wants. You can feel the sadness, the regret, and the sorrow from him. But, you could also feel the _hope_.

 

“Happiness.” you finally say. “He wishes for you to be happy. Karkat wishes for you to be happy Dave.”

 

The shorter man cries when he hears this. 

* * *

 

The shorter man spends more time with the Wind after that. You notice them together and holding hands in the night when the other villagers are asleep. You could feel the same thing radiating off of him like when he was with the taller man. You could feel the “love” radiating off of them.

It makes something drop in your stomach and makes you choke on your words again. You do not understand this feeling but it crawls up the back of your spine and attacks your heart in more places then one. Your Wind stops sleeping cuddled next to you, instead spending the nights with the shorter man. Your Wind begins to stop flying in the air, instead choosing to walk with the shorter man. Your Wind begins to ignore you when you cry out to him in the early dawn.

Your Wind takes a human name.

“John.” he tells you, on the one day you could finally catch him. He has a dreamy look in his eyes, as if he were still sleeping, and he tells you his name that the shorter man had given him. It’s short and simple but you can tell the Wind likes it. “John.”

When the smaller man dies, “John” dies with him. 

* * *

 

After that the years become pushed together.

The village thrives. People live. People die. Yet your Wind never came back to you. Like when the taller had died, something had left your Wind when the shorter man passed away.

Even when you were pressed against the Wind, hugging him and telling him of your day with the villagers, he would never respond with the same enthusiasm. He was searching, waiting, looking for something across the horizon. Something that you did not know. Something that was not on your island.

Your Wind finds it one day.

It’s like a shock. One second he is by your side, the next he has flown high into the air, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. You struggle and concentrate to float up to him, curious to know what had surprised him.

 

“He’s back,” he mutters, not looking or acknowledging you. “He’s been reborn.”

* * *

 

He tells you he is leaving you.

It comes out of the blue and you can feel something crumble and collapse in you as he tells you that he has to leave. That he must leave. You shake your head adamantly and grab his blue tunic. “You cannot go,” you say desperately. “Please my Wind do not go….

You tell him you cannot be without him. You tell him that you needed him by your side. You tell him that you did not know what to do if he were to leave. You tell him that he has to stay. 

He can only shake his head sadly and tells you he must be with him again.

You try to dissuade him. You tell him his plan will not work because the taller man must also be reborn if that many years have passed. You tell him that their bonds of (you cringe as you said the word) _love_ were too strong. “They will find each other again,” you said in cruel tone you have never heard yourself use before. “They will find each other and there will be no room for you in their lives. You will mean nothing to them.”

The Wind pauses and looks at you, shocked at your venom, then shakes his head. “If they are then I shall act.” he says. “I will not lose Dave to time again.”

You bite back your tears and, gritting your teeth, beg him one more time not to go. You beg him and you tell him that he was what gave you purpose in life. He was what the “something” you believed in. He was your _hope._

The Wind only shakes his head, _“I’m sorry.”_

* * *

 

When he leaves, you feel yourself slipping.

You stay in your house feeling the _hope_ you were born with all but disappear. It evaporates like the morning air, quickly and quietly. You spend the next season staring at the wall, drinking tea, and feeling a darkness in you that you never knew you had before.

The town begins to suffer. The villagers do not know what is going on, do not know of the departure of the Wind, but they know that something, _something_ , had changed. Some begin to pack up their belongings and leave, scared at this sudden change. You cannot blame them. You miss the Wind.

You miss him so much.

* * *

 

Seasons passed.

You find yourself looking in the mirror one day at your appearance. Though you know you have outlived many humans, you are not spared from the passage of time. After all, as your tomes had told you, you were no god. You were somewhere between human and god. Breath of life and herbs of hope, formed by the Wind’s hand had made you. You were not immortal, not without the fear of dying, you just possessed a prolonged existence. Appearance wise, you no longer look like the child born from the woods. You look older now. Long black hair that fell against your neck with a single strand half-heartedly braided, dark, sun tinted skin, and dull green eyes that resemble nothing of the beryl stone the Wind had compared them to. You are taller now. You are what the villagers call a “young adult.”

You wonder when you will die.

* * *

 

The seasons melts into years and you cannot help but feel as if that is what you are waiting for: death.

You are alone and you despise it with every fiber of your created body. You are alone surrounded by villagers who have become terrified of their blessed, “hopeful” island. You are alone without the Wind. You are alone without your _hope_. You are absolutely, utterly, alone.

That’s when a new villager comes.

* * *

 

His appearance surprises even you.

But not his physical appearance (from which you can only say is “tall” and “mysterious”) but his appearance on the island. He comes with shades on his face, a bag over his shoulder, and tools at his side. A farmer you note as he passes by you without sparing you a glance. He takes home in that couples’ old farm. (The ones who stole your Wind.)

You ignore him.

His crops do well but you he’s using the seeds from the general store. That would never yield him high quality products.

You ignore him.

His animals like him but unless he purchases a brush and a bell, they would never come to respect him.

You ignore him.

He does not talk to many of the other villagers yet they all seemed to like him. He is welcomed to the town with open arms.

You ignore him.

* * *

 

You tell you fortunes to the villagers, all of which were bleak and without hope. It’s childish you know, spreading your sadness throughout the town, but what good was _hope_ if, in the end, it left you? It would always leave you? What good was believing in something when that “something” would one day desert you? _Hope_ was useless and now, without the Wind, you did not see why the villagers needed it.

Perhaps in the end, you never really cared. Perhaps you had only been trying to impress the Wind. Perhaps you had been blinded by greed for the Wind’s approval. Perhaps that was it in the end.

You ignore the growing feeling of guilt when you watch the annual Animal Parade pass by your window at the end of the season. The villagers chant prayers to the forest, asking for the legendary “Spirit of Hope” to once again guide them and “The Wind” to once again bless them.

Your guilt grows. 

* * *

 

It’s New Year’s Eve when you finally meet the new farmer.

You admit that if there was one thing you enjoyed immensely about the town, it was the fireworks. The colors, the shapes, the noises all fascinated you and you always looked forward to watching them from your porch steps. To your surprise, you find the farmer waiting outside your door, starring up at the night sky. He glances back at you and nods. “Hey,” he says bluntly.

You make no move to acknowledge him, merely shooting him a glance before asking him why he was so far from the Town Hall. “There’s a better view of the fireworks there,” you mutter, “Not to mention there are more people there.”

He hums in agreement. “Shouldn’t you be going there then Mr. Wizard?” he asks, “Can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend their New Year’s alone.” His tone goes up at the end, as if he’s teasing you yet his features remain unreadable. It’s an irritating action that has you gritting your teeth.

 

“I celebrate my New Year’s differently,” you say, “I celebrate it _alone_.”

 

Another hum. You ignore him.

He stays by your side until the fireworks stop booming overhead before he turns and tells you (with that same unreadable expression) that you talked funny. You’re tempted to engage fisticuffs with him but merely shoot him a glare before returning to your abode. 

* * *

 

The coming morning, the Wind sends you a message via seagull.

The note is attached to the bird’s leg but you recognize the Winds' symbol instantly. You nearly knock over the tea in your hands all over your newly opened tome (you had gotten through a little over half of them) as you desperately reach for the poor bird. Your fingers tremble as you undo the cord and you give the seagull a slice of orange to eat before unraveling the note. A part of your _hope_ reignites itself as the possibilities of the message float through your head. Perhaps the Wind had given up. Perhaps he was sorry for leaving you alone for so many seasons. Perhaps he was coming back for you.

But yet again, your _hope_ gets the better of you. 

* * *

 

The note is short and talks nothing about his return. It talks nothing about how much the Wind misses you. Instead the note says that your Wind is _happy_. He found his happiness. He found what he had spent millenniums looking for. He tells you that he’s been accepted into a new family. One with his Dave and now, his Karkat too.

Karkat. That was the name of the taller man. Who would’ve guessed that even through rebirth the couple would find each other? Who would’ve guessed they would also welcome the Wind into their…. family.

The Wind tells you that although he is happy he knows that one day the two men will leave him and he will have to find them again. He tells you that you are lucky because you were not like him. You would not live forever. You had the chance to pass on. You had the chance to be reborn. You had the chance to, after you stopped being _hope_ , a chance to be human.

You burn the letter with yellow roses. Because in the end, that’s what you were. Nothing but a yellow rose. Nothing but jealously twisted inside the guise of friendship.

The Wind had really, truly left you.

* * *

 

The first day of spring brings you no joy or new customers. Neither does the second day. By the third the villagers are convinced that the island has been cursed because all spring crops that were meant to be reborn are not being “reborn.” Just like your _hope_ , you can feel the roots shriveling up and dying.

The Wind’s message had been the final touch to your coffin.

_Hope_ was dead. 

* * *

 

The seventh day of spring you get a visitor.

You’re nursing a cup of tea and gazing into your crystal ball (something you had created after you found out the villager’s preferred a physical object to gaze into rather than just relying on your words. Villagers were strange in that way) when he enters.

 

“Hey.”

 

His greeting is as blunt as ever yet by the way he stands, imposing and tall in your living room, you are sure that he is not going to leave any time soon. There’s a frown on his lips that tells you he is here for business. You hold in a groan and, mustering up your most “pleasant” attitude, offer him a seat, a cup a tea, and your services as a “Wizard.”

The man nods and takes the designated seat across from your desk. Your first clenches and you give him his damn tea, half hopping that he’s allergic to whatever herbs are in there. Instead he sighs contently and tells you he loves orange blossom tea. You make a mental note to burn all the orange blossom in your house.

You sit down across from him and ask him what he desires to know. You go through your motions passing your hands over your crystal ball.

 

He leans in close and asks you when _hope_ will return.

 

You pause for a fraction of a second, too fast for human eyes, before continuing your movements. You gaze into your crystal ball and tell him his crops will be successful this year as long as he combines well water with rainwater. “That is all,” you say quickly, refusing to look up at him. He leans in and tells you that’s not what he was asking. “I was asking,” he says, annunciating the words slowly, “When will _hope_ return?”

You growl at him, pulling back and snarling that _hope_ was dead. You rise from your seat and tell him that you have no more visions or fortunes to give him and that he should hurry back home to his crops and his animals and his life.

The farmer quirks an eyebrow and frowns, as if he’s disappointed in you, and rises from his seat. “Didn’t mean to upset you,” he says quietly. You glare at him as he turns to the door and walks towards it and you silently dare him to turn back and insult you. You feel the words from a curse curl itself on your lips as his hands rest on your doorknob and you can feel his yourself biting your tongue to keep your words in.

 

Then he turns and what seems like…sadness washes over him.

 

“My name is Dirk,” he says softly, “A witch sent me here to investigate the disappearance of _hope_. If you Mr. Wizard have or had anything to do with it…”

His tone is dark and his voice is grating when he says the next four words,

 

“I will find out.” 

* * *

 

You’re on your guard after that.

You barely leave your house for even the woods, too terrified to accidentally run into Dirk. You do not know why he, a human, would terrify you but there was something in his voice that had scrapped the insides of you and made you absolutely frozen with fear.

So instead, you stay inside and work on studying your tomes and practicing your spells. You graph stars in the sky at night and watch as the moon travels slowly across the sky.

You wonder idly if you should get a cat. 

* * *

 

You run out of tealeaves all too quickly. You force yourself to drink the coffee you offered to the older villagers during their visits. Your face twists in disgust at every bitter sip.

You wish you had sugar. 

* * *

 

You last three whole days of bitter coffee drinking when you finally force yourself to go out and scavenge.

You head to the woods, gathering flowers and leaves fit for brewing. You gather fruit. You gather nuts and cotton. You’re sweaty and exhausted, with enough food and tea to last you the season overflowing in your knapsack. 

You pass by the hot spring and consider, briefly, the possibility of drowning yourself. That would finally prove to you whether or not you could truly “die.” That would let you know if your torturous existence could end. That would certainly make the Wind weep in regret.

And a thought passes your mind. A thought of, “It wouldn’t hurt to try.” 

* * *

 

You don’t get more than an ankle deep in however when the water’s surface breaks and you find yourself face to face with that man again.

 

Dirk.

 

He’s there in front of you. His hair is not pulled back, but wet and across his face. His eyes are no longer hidden but are uncovered and oh-so-very- _orange_ to you.

 

He is also naked.

 

You splutter apologies and quickly turn around, feeling embarrassed. You never saw a naked human before in all your many, many years. In fact, you’ve never seen anyone naked. When the Wind had been with you and offered to bathe you, you had always declined, not wanting your Wind to witness you in such a state of undress.

And now here you are in front of the human who has done nothing but piss you off since he first entered the village, completely exposed behind you.

You mutter more apologies and quickly move to leave the hot spring when there’s a chuckle behind you. “Hello again Mr. Wizard.” Dirk says in a tone that just makes you want to curse him with a silencing spell. “You’re looking…red today.”

You grit your teeth and tell him (not to his face but to the tree in front of you) that you were simply passing through and apologize for bothering him. He tells you you weren’t. You still apologize and take a step forward. 

To your surprise, he grips the back of your cloak and tells you again he wasn’t bothered by you. You will yourself not to look back. You will yourself to calm down. You will yourself not to quiver as he blows hot air into your ear and-Nope that’s too much. You will not have him touching you like this, breathing on you like this, and making your insides churn and vibrate this quickly.

You pull away from him, yanking your green cloak from him so hard that he falls down with a splash. You turn to yell whatever spell you can remember from your curse tome at him when you see him again.

 

There, lying wet and naked and just so very _raw_ in front of you with those orange eyes that laser into you and-You just…. You can’t….

 

You tear yourself away and run back, back, back to your safe house. You slam the door, your heart beating fast and you sink to the ground and bury your face in your hands.

You are so fucked.


	2. Hope and Hemlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yet when you wake the next day, your resolution to stay inside your house until the farmer dies remains unshaken."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter. I was going to post later (as I doubt I'd be able to keep a decent posting schedule and I should really spread myself out) but I couldn't. I have a weak will. The weakest of wills. The weakest of wills for side braided Jakes (should I just add that to the tags? It'll probably just be "hot dayum that side braid" and "its on point son")
> 
> Also on my tumblr this got reblogged more than I expected? I think I cried a little in happiness. Like it super made my week and stuff. I didn't get killed by tumbler-ers! I didn't get yelled at! Yay!!!! 
> 
> (Now I we return to Jake and his ever growing fucked up situation......)

You resolve to stay inside your house until the farmer dies.

A human life passed so quickly compared to yours and you could live off any leftover goods in your house. Your Wind had always kept you feed but you never saw him consume anything. Perhaps you could do that too. And even if you couldn’t, you would still avoid the farmer.

It was silly almost. Here you were, almost as old as the island itself yet you were afraid of a mortal. A human. A being whose abilities were limited by the body he was in. Yet it was you who were afraid. You who were scared. You who were hiding away.

 

You wonder why.

 

After all, what could he do to you? What could he do besides spit in your face and yell at you. He was younger, more fragile, less learned than you. So what if he was the first human who ever called you out for being _hope_? He’d be dead in a blink of an eye next to your near immortal life span. Surely with that thought in mind you could face him with a mask of indifference.

Yet when you wake the next day, your resolution to stay inside your house until the farmer dies remains unshaken. 

* * *

You’re sipping your third cup of morning tea (the bitter taste of rue leaves making you more anxious than relaxed) when a tentative villager knocks at your door and pokes his head in. He stutters his apologies and asks you for advice on a concerning personal matter of his. You stare blankly at him then nod your head, allowing him in. Though you wish to ignore him, to push him away and to yell at him, there’s an innocence sketched on his face that has you doing none of those things and instead has you offering him tea as he sits in front of your crystal ball. He shakes his head and tells you that this would only take a minute.

“A minute is still a long time,” you mumble as you sit down and begin to go through your practiced movements. “A lot can change in a minute.” There’s a look of what seems like slight panic when you ask him, rather bluntly, why he was here. He hesitates for a moment, biting down on his lip and squirming in his seat, before he continues.

“My animals,” he tells you, looking everywhere except at you, “They seem so…so…. sad all the time.” 

You stare at him and watch as he slumps forward and grips the arms on your chair. It tugs at your heart in a way you can’t place and you ask him, hands still encircling your crystal ball, to explain this “sadness.” He hesitates again and, still not looking at you, continues.

“They’re always looking towards the forest,” he says, “They look out and they…. they… _cry_ towards it.” He shakes his head in concern. “I don’t know what to make of it Mr. Wizard, I’ve never seen them like this. It’s almost as if…. if….” He finally looks at you and, to your surprise (and slight alarm), he leans in and whispers to you in a hushed tone,

 

“It’s almost as if what Dirk told me is true, _hope_ is suffering.”

 

For the second time in your life your hands pause over your crystal ball. This time however they shake and you have to retract them quickly lest the villager notices your sudden change. “What makes you believe him?” you ask, hoping that your voice isn’t as unsteady as you feel.

The villager sighs. “I’ve been taking care of my animals the same way my father and my father’s father had,” he says, “And I changed nothing except the equipment I use. Yet my animals…. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

 

It’s painful. The look on his face is painful for you. You can feel your body tense as you look at how _hopeless_ he looks. The look on his face is too painful for you.

 

You quickly rise and, ignoring the villager’s confused stare, head towards your cupboards on your walls. Opening its wooden doors, you push away glass cups and half filled jars until you find what you’re looking for: a small vial filled with cloudy liquid. Taking it into your hands, you turn and set it down in front of the villager. “Mix this with your animal’s water before you let them graze in the fields,” you tell him. “It will bring back their happiness.” His eyes widen and he asks if it really will. You tell them that it will.

 

But it will not.

 

You know it will not. The liquid would do nothing to make them happy, only make them _recall_ happier times. Times when their hearts were not pulled back to the forest where you had once resided. Times where they did not feel _hope_ slipping everyday. It was clouded happiness and one you are ashamed of giving to the villager. But…. What could you give him instead? Was it not better to recall happiness than be installed with false _hope_? Was it not better to have memories rather than realities? You hated doing this yet this “happiness”, however counterfeit, was all you _could_ do. Yes, nothing would be accomplished and someday the villager would be back to ask you for more of your elixir, but…. You could just make more. You could give him what he needed even if you were lying. You could make him happy.

Yet when he leaves there is an ugly feeling that blossoms in your chest. When you see him turn around to wave at you once more, a bright smile on his face, a disgusting ugliness clouds your heart and you turn away from his eyes feeling nauseous.

You really were useless weren’t you? Useless to these people who respected you as their Wizard, useless to your island that you had been sworn to give _hope_ to, and most of all,

 

Useless to your Wind. 

* * *

 

You experience your first nightmare that night.

You had never had bad dreams before. Even after your Wind had left your dreams had never been “bad.” They had served as an escape from your awakened troubles and had always been a place where you could see your Wind again. You had always liked your dreams.

 

In this dream, you can't breathe.

 

It’s as if smoke has entered your lungs yet there is no fire. You gasp and cry out to someone, anyone, for their comfort. You cry out to something that might hold you and tell you it was okay. You claw at your throat needing air, needing oxygen, and needing your Wind. You cry out for your Wind.

 

But like in real life, your Wind does not come. 

* * *

 

You wake up the next morning to the echoes of the night’s shocks coursing through your body. Only this time, it’s not coming from you.

You lift your head, feeling as if you have been crushed and then badly put back together, and grip your shirt in confusion. The shocks, the vibrations, the awful tingling of _everything._

 

It’s coming from them. The villagers. The people of your town.

 

You hear them pumping through your floors and falling off your walls into you. You gasp for air only now you have too much and you find yourself hacking your lungs out as you roll out of your bed, coughing on your floor. You struggle to get up and dress as quick as you can. You barely register that your exposed feet are hitting the dirt or that your hair is whipping past your ears, your braid slapping against your cheek. You just know you have to, need to, be there for _them_. You find yourself rushing to the town center, pulled by a force you cannot explain.

 

When you arrive, the villagers are going mad.

 

There’s yelling and shouting and crying that you haven’t seen in life times. It’s as if the peace and the tranquility had been ripped to shreds and destroyed in a single night. When they see you they immediately grab you by your cloak, pulling you into the crowd. You spin around and ask what is wrong, terror making your body become on edge. “Why are you yelling?” you ask. “Why are you crying?”

No one answers you. All they do is repeat the words “Awful, awful, awful,” again and again. You see the villager who had visited you the day before staring at you and fighting tears. Pushing away the others, you walk up to him and ask him softly, voice quivering, what is wrong.

 

He shakes his head. “The island,” he whispers, ‘The island is breaking.” 

* * *

 

The fires did not start. The river had dried up. The soil had suddenly become baked. And surrounding the island were storm clouds you had never seen before, storm clouds that no one had ever seen before, trapping everyone.

The lump in your throat grows and you find yourself slowly backing away from the villager, eyes wide in terror. Their attention no longer on you, the crowd moves to instead yell at their mayor for explanations. Explanations that you know he cannot give because he is only human and does not know what is happening. But you know, you know too well. You had done **this**.

You had cursed the island. You must have or why else would there be a sudden shift in everything? Why else would the growing uneasiness that had been plaguing the land suddenly spill over? You feel yourself fighting for your breath as every angry word and every teardrop rings in your ears. Your hands begin to shakily rise and you find yourself reaching out to the crowd, to the people, as if you were trying to catch them and save them before they toppled from existence. 

You are stopped when someone speaks to you, in a low, too calm, voice, “ _This_ is your fault.”

That voice does not come from the crowd but from behind you. You retract your arms and spin around, expecting to see a monster or the unknown terror from your nightmare.

 

Instead you see the farmer behind you. The very farmer you wanted to avoid. 

 

He looks at you but not in the way he had before. The teasing tone he had used when you were flushed with embarrassment at the hot springs has all but left his voice and his expression had shifted back to frighteningly unreadable. Yet you know, you just know, that those orange eyes of his are glowering at you from behind his frames.

“You did this,” he whispers, and you feel a shiver course through your blood as his voice grabs you. “Don’t try to deny it Wizard. I _know_ you did.”

 

He knows too much.

 

His knows too much about you and you know nothing of him. You know nothing except that he asks you questions you hate and he traps you in positions you hate. Dirk leans forward, his hidden eyes lining up with yours, and grips your chin. “I’m disappointed in you,” he growls.

There’s an explosion and cries of surprise behind you that distracts both you and Dirk. He let’s you go and you both spin around, confused at the sounds. You’re breath hitches at the sight: The town’s square fountain had just exploded.

Dirk’s eyes are back on you but he’s too late. You are already gone. 

* * *

 

You fly to the Wind’s altar. You haven’t flown in a long time but you now find yourself propelled through the air, rushing and racing every morning light to reach _his_ altar. The village is far behind you yet you still feel the pressure from Dirk’s fingers around your chin. He had been so close to your throat. He could have, at any moment, grabbed you there and squeezed. He could have destroyed you at your weakest.

You needed the Wind. You need the Wind. You need him badly. You needed his help. You didn’t know what to do and you needed the Wind to guide you. You needed him to tell you and to teach you what to do now. You were no longer a child but your voice echoes out like one as you hopelessly cry out to him.

When you reach the mountain where his altar is you look around, searching for his insignia. Searching for his sign.

 

You can’t find it.

 

You fly around and around the mountaintops, looking and searching but it’s not there anymore. It disappeared. It vanished. But no…. It couldn’t have. It couldn’t have disappeared. You grip your head in your hands and close your eyes.

It had to be here.

 

For the first time in a long time, you grip _hope_ in your mind and command it to be what you needed it to be. Command it to be your escort. To be the eyes you didn’t have. You tell it to find the altar.

Your _hope_ tells you you are right above it.

 

You open your eyes and see nothing but cracked stone and broken edges. You don’t see an altar, you just see peaks and pinnacles of the mountain. No altar. No insignia. No anything. Like the Wind, the altar was gone.

Something pulls you down and you find yourself slowly drifting back to earth, deflating like a child’s balloon until your feet touch the dry earth and you crumple to the floor, the situation becoming too raw for you.

 

You were alone. 

* * *

 

The villagers become desperate.

Though you hardly ventured deep into the town anymore (too painful it had been to see others those first seasons without the Wind) you can hear the cries of the people as they ask for help. You can hear them asking and begging for the Wind to help them. Begging for him to push the storms away. Begging for him to help. You hear them begging for your help too. You hear them chant for you everyday. _Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope._

It’s painful to hear. It’s painful to listen to. It’s painful to know that they needed you but you could do nothing for them. You could do nothing at all. You were useless. You are useless.

 

And after two weeks of no visitors to your shop, you resolve, again, to stay in your home. 

* * *

 

For days you gnaw on coffee beans and eat dried flowers. Your spells suffer due to the herbs you consume. You run out of food at the end of the first season and struggle to fight the pangs that rush through you. You feel yourself withering away.

 

Yet, as if to add insult to injury, the farmer is still alive.

 

In contrary to the rest of the village, his crops are doing well, his water is fresh and satiating, and his fires are miraculously alive and warm. They are all untouched by your unintentional curse and seem to thrive almost as if by magic. All too eagerly, the villagers turn their attention to him, asking for his help and begging for his assistance. To your utter disgust (and combined embarrassment) he gives it to them. He gifts them rich soil and good fertilizer. He allows them to take the extra eggs from his chickens and milk his cows and goats. He installs their houses with manmade aqueducts that supply fresh, cool water from deep beneath the island.

You can feel a different _hope_ grow in the land. A _hope_ that is not from you. A _hope_ that is from him. A _hope_ that does not even feel like _hope_. The farmer is helping them, each and every villager, from the _heart_.

You feel utterly useless. 

* * *

 

You wonder, more than once, if you should confront the farmer. Ask him of his origins and demand him to tell you, once and for all, who he was and how he knew so much. How he knew of your tomes and your spells. How he knew of _hope._

But you...You cannot.

A fear grips you every time you peek out your window. A fear shakes you and makes you wake up in the middle of the night, gasping as if you’re drowning or burning. You do not know what this fear is but it grows every day.

 

This was not “you” centuries ago.

 

Centuries ago you were brave, wide eyed, and curious. Centuries ago you would fly through the air in wonderment, excited for the possibilities of the day’s adventures. Centuries ago you would marvel at every little animal and brush your hands against the earth just to feel how _hope_ was coursing through the soil.

Now you hardly even pushed aside your curtain to let in the sun. Everyday was filled with nothing but drinking tea (and later, just plain hot water) and wondering when, just when, the nightmare will end. Everyday you spent, next to a weak flame of a candle, wondering how you were still alive. Your island did not deserve this curse from you.

Sometimes you would spend days and nights pouring through every one of your tomes, searching for a reverse spell that could save your home. But these times left you more and more regretful of your actions. No matter how many days you spent searching, you found nothing. 

* * *

 

The island survives and it’s all thanks to the farmer. Spring had melted into Summer, which had evaporated into Autumn.

Autumn you are still alive.

 

Your house is messy with pages and tomes, your tea and your coffee are gone, and it takes more time to braid the portion of your hair that hung in front of your face. But… you cannot do anything.

Loose pages crumple as you lift your head off the floor from where you had fallen asleep and you shudder in disgust as you look out at your small, four corned prison. Your stomach grumbles and you reach over to your mug only to knock it over. It falls yet you hardly register its crash. You rise slowly, avoiding the shards, and flip you hand half-heartedly and mutter a quick clean up spell.

 

The mug only partially reforms.

 

You walk over to your cluttered desk and flip open another one of your tomes, allowing your eyes to skim over its pages, deciding that today will be another day dedicated to searching for a reverse spell. Before you would have brought the tome close to your face and force your eyes to stay open to read every single line and word.

Now you rub your eyes after two half read pages. Your eyesight had been failing you and making things blurry if they were too far away. You would need to find a “fix-eye spell” soon less things become permanent. That is, assuming you found a “save-the-island spell.”

 

You spend another full day in your house.

 

It’s only when the weak moonlight hits your pages do you stir. You pull yourself away from your tome and look around at your home. You rise only to collapse on the ground, legs shaky from too much sitting. You curl into yourself.

You had spent many nights like this. Spent many passing moons with your head against the floor waiting for something. But what that something was you did not know. Perhaps you were waiting for death. Waiting for something to take you away from your life now.

But…. what was after death? Your Wind had never told you and your tomes had never been clear to you where “after death” was. Would you be reincarnated like the shorter man and the taller man? You find yourself disbelieving this thought. Perhaps there was no place for you after death. Perhaps, even in death, you would be equally useless as you were now.

 

But at least you would not bother anyone.

 

Your gaze shifts upwards towards your cupboards and you stare at its splintered wood. There was nothing in them anymore. Anything you could consume had already been consumed days (or was it seasons?) ago. There was nothing there except for one, shiny, silver box.

You find yourself standing up and, legs quivering open the cupboard to reach for that box. You had always thought it would stay in there, never to see the sun again, yet now you opened it almost happily.

The scent of hemlock hits your nose. 

* * *

 

Originally, you had destroyed all the hemlock on the island after the humans had first landed. They, in their innocence, could not distinguish it from Queen Ann’s lace and had attempted, more than once, to make tea from it. You had always been able to stop them before they could (distracting them with noises that made them spill the horrid poison “by accident”) yet after you had destroyed them all you had kept these hemlocks, the one inside your box, to yourself, a saddened part of your young mind upset to see such a fine plant being reduced to forced extinction. You had kept it there for sentimental reasons…. 

Now, you take them from the box and gaze at it, still as fresh and pungent as the day they had been picked. You let your fingers brush against its white, tiny, florets and inhale their sour aroma. You close your eyes and tell yourself that you _had_ to do _this_ ….

Working almost unconsciously, you take the plant to your table. You ground it down, pulverize it, steep its broken form, and combine it with your remaining hot water. A smile curls itself on your lips as you pour the liquid from your teapot into your spare unbroken mug.

 

Death by hemlock would be a slow, painful, horrible death. It seemed almost fitting for someone as pitiful as you. 

* * *

 

For the first time in seasons, you venture out of your house. You venture out for your last moon viewing.

You gaze up at the sky, at the moon, at the stars, and breathe in the crisp air. How strange it all was. After spending so long depriving yourself of the elements, here you were willingly absorbing them with warmed poison in your hands. You suppose this would be all right. You would drink, let the toxins contaminate you, and then you will die. Or at least, finally discover if you could die you think as you let the night breezes caress your cheeks.

Maybe, if you did truly die, then the island would be restored. Maybe whatever _hope_ that had disappeared through you would once again bless the island. Maybe there would no longer be any need for a creature like you. A strange, created creature like you.

 

You wonder how the Wind is feeling.

 

Would he know what had happened to you? Would he feel it in himself? Or was he too busy being happy without you? Too busy with his happiness to care for the “life” in you that was his sister’s? Would he know what had happened to the island? Were you disappointing him now? If you were, it didn’t matter anymore…. did it?

  
You raise your mug to your lips and decide that if you had to die, you were oddly glad it was like this. Under the night sky. Alone. With no one else to view your shame. You kiss the glass and whisper softly,

 

“I am sorry.”

 

If you’re saying this to the villagers, to the Wind, or even to that ridiculous farmer, you do not know. Maybe, you were saying it to yourself. Not the “you” now, but to the past you that had woken up all that time ago, innocent and wide eyed, in the forest. The past you that the Wind had had so much _hope_ in. 

You tilt your head back and close your eyes. 

* * *

 

A sudden rush of energy forces the glass from you with an ear-shattering **_whoosh_**. Your eyes snap open and your first thought is the _Wind._ But you know it’s not. It can’t be.

And it isn’t.

It’s not the Wind that pushes the mug from your fingers but something else. Something that makes your bones tingle and your breath pull. Something that you had felt before in only a few spark that was left in your tomes. Something that felt so familiar yet so distant from your _hope._

 

Magic. Pure, unadulterated magic from the _heart_ had forced the toxin from you.

 

You watch as the mug bounces, clatters, and drains into the dirt all your hard work. There’s a drop in your stomach as you watch your poison, your one ticket to death, destroy itself. You then look up. There, behind you, arms outstretched,

 

Is Dirk. 

* * *

 

“The fucking hell,” he growls out. “The _fucking_ hell?”

He marches over and grabs you and demands to know what you were doing and what you were thinking. Demands to know why you were hiding for so many seasons. Demands it and shakes you like you were nothing more than a feeble, dying autumn leaf. He shakes you and shakes you until you are seeing stars and still he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t stop yelling. Doesn't stop yelling that he hasn’t seen you in seasons and _this_ is how he finds you, setting up your own funeral at the dead of night. “What were you thinking?” he growls, “What were you _thinking?_ ”

 

You do not like his tone.

 

You have never been spoken to so harshly like this before. You are no child, yet the Wind had never scolded you like this. He had always been soft and kind. He had pitied you when you needed to be pitied and helped you when you needed to be helped. He had understood you.

Now, against this harsh sounding human, you feel like a child and, against your will, you find your eyes become slowly pricked with tears. You try to wrestle your way out from his grip but your body is weak and all you could do was flop around like a landed fish. His grip becomes tighter and he mutters something under his breath that makes the bones in you crack and your mind snap but you still grit your teeth and pull as hard as you can.

“Why don’t you,” the farmer says, never letting go, “Just fucking _stop.”_

And you do.

You do stop. You stop moving. You stop writhing. You stop everything.

You can’t move. You can’t move at all. Your body won’t move. Not even when you command it to. You have no control over your person and you know it was _him_ who did it. It was the farmer. It was Dirk.

 

He cast a spell on you.

 

“An obedience spell.” Dirk says, as if voicing your thoughts. Only now, there’s a twinge to his voice, as if he hates that he has to be doing this to you. He then shrugs, as if trying to brush it off without a care and retracts his hands from you. “You left me no choice Mr. Wizard.” 

He takes a step back and flicks his head. “ _Follow_ ,” he commands.

Your feet, suddenly perking up, do not listen to you as you obey him. You grit your teeth, unused to this lack of control and squirm from his spellbound grasp on you. “Is this a joke?” you splutter angrily. “Does this blasphemous tom-foolery make you happy farmer?!” You shout out every angry insult that you know and find yourself becoming more and more enraged as the farmer has the nerve to actually laugh at some of them.

“Quite the old-fashioned tongue you have there Mr. Wizard,” he comments after you told him (for the twentieth time) that he was the most “Uncouth braggart to ever explore this side of the thalassic coasts.”

“Why don’t you save your voice and be _quiet,_ ” he suggests.

 

Your mouth clamps shut. 

* * *

 

Dirk makes you follow him to his farm, parading you behind him as if you were nothing more than an animal. The whole journey your stewing, biting your cheek, and glaring daggers and swords into the back of his head. You hate him. You despise him. You wish he’d never shown up on your island. At every glance back to you, you make sure to exaggeratedly roll your eyes and snort through your nose like an angry stallion. You follow him, through his fields (which are green and flourishing with crop) and into his house. His house is just the right size for two and you feel a flood of past “love” as you step through the door, the fragmented memories of the shorter man and the taller man (and your Wind you realize) dancing in its ambience.

 

You bite your cheek till you taste blood.

 

Dirk then stops and, turning to fully face you, mutters something under his breath. It’s a mere three words yet you find yourself suddenly collapsing to the floor, breathing and gasping, your body once again in your control. You heave, right there on his floor, several times before you raise you head and glare up at him. “Scoundrel,” you croak, “You absolute scoundrel.”

He kneels down and offers you a hand. “Half-witch actually,” Dirk replies. When you don’t take his hand, all he does is sigh and picks himself up again. He walks away from you and you listen as he clatters around in the area that must be his kitchen. No sooner is he gone then he returns to your disheveled form, a mug in his hands. “Drink.” He says, extending a cup out to you. “This will do you good.”

You’re relieved that your hand doesn't reach out on its own and instead glare at the offering, _hoping_ that whatever _hope_ you had would blow up the drink. And Dirk. And his ridiculous house. You clench your fist and _hope_ it would happen. 

It doesn’t happen. His house remains in tact and the mug doesn’t blow up.

 

Dirk sighs again. “Just drink it Mr. Wizard,” he says, “It’s chrysanthemum.” He hesitates before he adds, “Your favorite.”

 

He’s not lying. Chrysanthemum tea is your favorite and it was one of the teas that had disappeared first after you became a hermit. But because _he’s_ offering it you, you don’t want to take it. So you just stare at the mug more, calling out to your _hope_ to blow it up.

To your lack of surprise, it still doesn’t blow up. And its only when Dirk threatens to force-feed (force-drink?) you the liquid that you do finally take the mug from him. Your hands are shaking and you almost drop it but you raise the mug to your lips, trying to restrain yourself from guzzling the tea. But the flowers and their taste are so wonderful in their familiarity that you end up downing it in seconds, ignoring how it burns your throat, drips down your neck, and brings tears of pain (and possible happiness) to your face.

 

Dirk watches you.

 

“Just like a kid,” he says after you hand him the mug back. “Who would’ve guessed it? The mighty Wizard can’t control himself.”

 

He then looks down, ignoring your glower, and frowns slightly, studying your empty mug. “Ironic don’t you think?” he says quietly, “The Wizard enjoys yellow chrysanthemums.” He looks up and then leans in close to you and asks, “Do you know what they mean?”

Of course you know what they mean. You had known since before he was born but you instead keep your mouth shut and your eyes focused on where his eyes might be behind his glasses, daring him to answer you in your silence.

 

And he does.

 

“They mean sorrow and neglected love,” Dirk says. He cocks his head at you. “Language of the flowers is an amazing thing isn’t it Mr. Wizard?” He tortures the title “Wizard” out and you feel yourself bristling as he continues.

“Sorrow and neglect aren’t the greatest ingredients for hope, don’t you agree?”

 

Your grit your teeth and tell him to not to take the “language of the flowers” so seriously. “They’re just plants farmer,” you spit out, reminding him of his pitiful, tiny existence in life. “They mean _nothing_.”

He’s deadly quiet after that and a shot of panic courses through you when speaks again because his tone _changed._

“Nothing?” Dirk says, picking himself up. He hums, seemingly sucking the life from the room, as he towers over you. “Does hemlock than mean _nothing_ Mr. Wizard? Does poison mean _nothing?”_ His voice claws down your back and you can feel hairs stand up on your neck and your palms begin to shake as he asks, too calmly and too forcefully,

 

“Does _dying_ mean _nothing?_

* * *

 

You can’t answer him when he says this and there’s a look of anger on his face that you have never seen before on a human. A look of anger you have never had directed towards _you_ before. An anger that makes your insides twist and your body feel heavy. In the past you’ve seen the Wind and the people of the town look happy, sad, and (on occasion) annoyed at you. But never mad. Never have you seen rage like the one painted on Dirk’s face. And in a way, it’s more terrifying than the words he had used when he was yelling at you.

“You’re pathetic Mr. Wizard,” Dirk says bluntly, stabbing and twisting the words into your stomach. “Yellow chrysanthemums? Hemlock? What, were you born from lobelias too?” He crosses arms and you feel yourself shrinking from beneath him. “Were you born from malevolence to spread malevolence?” he spits, “Is that what you were born from? Is that why you were made?” His words come out sharp and painful. Painful enough to shatter something inside of you. Sharp enough to shatter your heart. Sharp enough to shatter your _hope_.

He growls at you.

“One of my sister’s sent me here to help this island,” Dirk says. “She has memories of growing up here. She has memories of watching the first Animal Parade. This place was honored in her memories even after she _died_.” The way he annunciates his next words makes your blood freeze.

 

“And I will not let a _coward_ like you take away this island’s life away.” 

* * *

 

He lifts his hand up and outstretches it out to you and your blood really does freeze. It’s frozen and you could feel the flow almost _reversing_ in on itself. It’s painful. Excruciatingly painful. You’ve never felt pain like this before. Your jaw locks, your mind snaps and you can’t breathe. You can’t breathe at all. Your only focus is on Dirk Dirk Dirk **_Dirk._**

He says words that you recognize too well. It’s words from your tomes only their faster and more elegant than you have known them to be. They come rushing out of him like stars and meteors from the sky and you would be impressed at how skilled he is if he wasn’t speaking words of a spell that is currently clawing your mind. You know this spell. You know what it is. It’ like the obedience spell he had just used on you only it’s not. It’s worse. It’s folding around you and trapping you in an icy, invisible, prison.

 

It’s a submission spell.

 

A servant spell. A spell that meant one of you would become lord, master, ruler, chief, and the other will become nothing more than a pageboy. And unlike the obedience spell, you know that it won’t just have you performing his commands, but performing his commands with no complaints from your mind. It would twist your conscious to his will. You would feel whatever he wanted you to feel, whether you wanted to or not, and he would know how you truly felt. The idea of that makes you feel even sicker and you twist with all your might against his powers with what you have of yours. You twist and turn but the words encase you and crowd you. They trap you and snare you and you gasp and reach out for anyone to help you. For someone to save you. Because, although you are more powerful, he’s more experienced. He’s had a teacher. It’s clear that he has had a teacher. He had had a witch to teach him. His sister to show him the way. He wasn't self taught and trained like you had been. You had struggled for centuries under no one’s tutelage with books that not even the Wind could read. He on the other hand had someone to help him every step of the way. He had someone to correct and help him. Someone to show him the rights and the wrongs.

Under his experience, his knowledge, it is you who are the mere child. The meek. The pathetic. The utterly hopeless.

You feel weak splashes of _hope_ drip inside of you but they do nothing to help you. They might protect you, let you keep some of your mind away from his total control, but you know that it would all be in vain. You’d still be under his command. You’d still be under his control. You’d still listen and obey _him._ You resist best you could but you still find yourself falling deep, deep into Dirk’s everything. You feel your eyes close as the spell seals up around you. Your breathing switches back to normal and you find your breaths become heavier and heavier as your body slips into a haze like a dream.

Your eyes flutter, barely staying open, as Dirk utters the final passages of the spell and tells you his first command of many, “ _Sleep_.”

 

Your eyes close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk: Sees an attempt of suicide. Curses a centuries old magical being.
> 
> Jake: Tries to avoid the problem. Gets his ass cursed. (see tags above for "mind control" and "enemies to friends to lovers") Does he deserve it? Yes? No? Whatever it is, I tried to make him the perfect balance between centuries old dude, innocent baby, confused college student, and angsty pre-teen.


	3. Hope and Dirk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can only grin and answer back his wink with a two fingered salute (that you learned from the children) in mock malice. “The curse of hope of course,” you answer. “What else?” "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Here it is. The next chapter. Yay!!!! PLEASE someone help me on editing.
> 
> ALSO this picture was done by pumpkin (who is amazing amazing AMAZING) pls check it! 
> 
> http://pumpkin-of-space.tumblr.com/post/167215253706/hes-there-in-front-of-you-his-hair-is-not-pulled

Your eyes open and your Wind looks down at you. You watch as he tries and fails to keep from laughing at you, his teeth already beginning to peak through his lips as his smile widens and his figure shakes. You scrunch your nose up at him.

“Bully,” you whisper, though your tone is light. Your Wind then begins to really laugh at you. He laughs and he laughs, doubling over as you watch tears of happiness form in the corner of his eyes. You feel a smile begin to lift the corners of your mouth as you watch him.

The Wind shakes his head, “Sorry! Sorry!” he says, still laughing. “I just didn’t expect you to crash into that tree like that! I truly didn’t it!" 

You highly doubt his “truly didn’t” statement as you stand up and brush yourself off. “Yes of course you ‘accidentally’ blew a cloud in my face,” you reply, rolling your eyes. “And you tell me that I am beginning to act as the villagers.” Your tone is light as you take a stray leaf from your hair and blow it into his face. “You, my Wind,” you say, “Are becoming more and more like those children everyday. And here I thought that you would become more gentlemanly.”

 

Your Wind gasps and presses a hand against his chest, imitating a shocked housewife.

 

“Me?” he asks in mock surprise, “Becoming like one of those children? Certainly not! And I’ll have you know that I’ve been a ‘gentleman’ long before you were _Hope._ ” He leans forward and taps your nose. “I’d watch my tongue if I was you. Learn to respect your elders.”

You merely shove him aside and brush the rest of the leaves from your hair. “And I’d watch my back if I was you my Wind,” you answer back smoothly. “After all, my _revenge_ may come at any moment.”

“Your revenge? That doesn’t sound very ‘gentlemanly,’” your Wind says, “But I’m always interested in a comeuppance, especially if it’s from one of my star pupils.” He winks. “Pray tell me what your _revenge_ may be my little tree-crasher?”

You can only grin and answer back his wink with a two fingered salute (that you learned from the children) in mock malice. “The curse of _hope_ of course,” you answer. “What else?” 

* * *

 

You awake in a room that is not yours and with the Wind just a distant memory in your mind.

Speaking of which, your mind is _throbbing._ Throbbing painfully and wildly, as if you were in a constant state of head rush. It’s hard to keep your eyes open for more than a few seconds, disorientation making you want to vomit. You stay in differing huddled positions, each for minutes too long to be considered normal, before you can finally rise to you hands and knees. It’s when the world finally stops spinning that you can finally notice that this, this mattress you are on top of, is not yours. This is not your mattress.

 

This is not your bed.

 

Your bed at home is hard and musty. It’s stained with coffee and tea and other spilled potions and herbs. And it smells like your sweat and your tears. Your mattress isn’t what is currently under you. It’s not this white not is it this thick and _soft._ You’ve never slept on something this soft before and the sight of the pillow and the feel of the fabric makes you want to bury yourself back in and sleep for years and never wake up. Yet the sting in your head tells you to do otherwise. This “sting” seems to pierce through the rest of your thoughts and invade them. It’s like a nagging panic that tells you to go go go **go** somewhere. It’s irritating. It’s horrible. It makes you filled with an anxiousness that you haven’t felt in years.

It reminds you of what happened the night before.

You move to the edge of your bed and place one foot…. then the other on the wooden ground. That’s when you notice the second thing of the day. Only this thing is more drastic than the other the first thing. At least, it’s more drastic to you:

 

You’re wearing different clothes. You’re not wearing your robes.

You run a hand through your hair and find it clean, void of grease and dirt, and lacking its braid. Someone has cleaned you.

 

You look around the room, noting the alarming amount of metal and books shoved against the corners. As if, rather than be used for sleeping, this room was used for building and reading. It reminds you, almost ironically, like the entirety of your home. Like the occupant of this home cared less about sleep and more about study.

It’s when you think of the home’s “occupant” that, as if summoned, the door in the corner of the room opens and Dirk pops his head in.

 

Though he lacks his glasses, his eyes and his being are just as unreadable as you had recognized them to be. He walks himself in and it takes all your inner man grit to not bury yourself back under the covers and hide yourself. You stand shakily and meet his gaze head on, your heart starting to pump and adrenaline beginning to shake through you.

The two of you stare at each other, not speaking a word, for what feels like a season.

 

“Didn’t expect you to wake this early,” he finally says, “This is farmer’s time after all.”

 

You have no concept of “time” really (you slept when you were tired and that just happened to be when the sun was rising instead of setting) so you choose to continue to stare him down, hoping that he would go away so you could…Hide? Escape? At this point, even you were unsure of what you wanted.

He cocks his head and studies you. There’s a slight hesitation in his actions, as if _he_ is also unsure of what to do next or even how to do it. His fingers tap against his leg and there’s a moment where he looks…very vulnerable. As if he was the one in a position of weakness and not you. But as soon as this thought passes through your mind, Dirk flinches, like you had just pinched him. Coughing, Dirk straightens himself, any sigh of weakness or hesitation disappearing. He licks his lips before asking, in a steady tone,

 

“How was your rest?”

 

You don’t make a move to answer him but there’s a twitch on your tongue that shoots down your throat and makes _something_ pound inside of you. You barely even have time to react when, to your horror, your mouth immediately opens to respond to him. And how you respond surprises both Dirk and yourself.

“It was positively capital!” you say and you say it in a tone that makes all parts of your body squirm. It’s a tone that sends of a shudder of hot embarrassment down your back. “I have never slept on something so soft before! How the devil did you come across the downy for such a fine mattress?”

The words are spilling out before you could even try to stop yourself. And they’re spilling out in an excited tone that you haven’t heard in your voice in a _long_ time. Spilling out in the way you used to talk to the Wind. It’s a way of talk you thought you had buried years ago because you had found it childish when compared to your “Embodiment of _Hope_ /Wizard” position. But now here you are, talking like that now and— _oh gods it’s not stopping_.

“Are they goose feathers? Chicken? I am afraid I do not know of any other foul save for what is on this island. Or did you bring it from off island? Is this what you mainlanders use everyday?” you ask and you can feel a childish (and humiliating) grin spread over your face, “My own blasted mattress is so old I do consider it to be decomposing! I would not be surprised if I found a skeleton in there between the linings! It is simply poppycock how a mattress can-!”

It’s _mortifying_ hearing yourself talk like this again. It’s absolutely shameful. Your words are rushing out and your voice is an octave higher than the baritone you usually place it in. Somewhere inside yourself you scream to stop but your overwhelmed with a desire to share and to just show how _happy_ you feel.

 

You need to stop stop **stop.**

 

Your _hope_ seem to finally fucking _work_ and you manage to slap your hand over your mouth before anything more embarrassing can slip out, your final words of “-Can be that smashing!” being muffled. Your ears are burning, your neck is hot, and you can feel your face become two tones darker under an unfortunate blush. You bite down, hard, on your tongue and the pain seems to snap your mind back to you. You’re breathing heavily and your afraid to even move yet you want nothing more than to crawl back into the blasted mattress and hide for the rest of eternity.

The look Dirk gives you only adds to your desire to disappear and never return. Your hand trembles against your mouth as you berate yourself. Getting all worked up over where you slept? Acting like this for just a mattress? You wish the ground would decompose you back to your natural elements right now.

Dirk looks at you with eyes full of…. Surprise. No, he’s beyond surprised. He’s staring at you, wide eyed, and with a very noticeable look of shock on his face. As if he didn’t even know that _that_ was going to happen. 

There’s a silence that lasts for a long time between you two and you have to breathe heavily through your nose, too afraid to unclasp your mouth. Too afraid of hearing yourself sound like _that_ again. When Dirk does speak, his voice is slow, controlled, and only a little teasing.

 

“I guess that spell worked, wouldn’t you agree Wizard?” he finally says. He raises his hand to his chest and leaves it there, as if he was checking his own heartbeat.

 

Much to you chagrin, your head begins to nod in response and the hand over your mouth falls. Before you could press it back you hear yourself say, in a sarcastic tone that even you are surprised you can muster,

“You think? You are the one who performed that blasphemous spell in the first place Dirk! Do not tell me that you did not know what you were doing before you did it! Chestnuts and acorns if you just cast spells willy-nilly like that than it is lucky I did not turn into a slug!”

That actually makes Dirk laughs again. It’s a quick chuckle but it’s unmistakable. The laugh is there and gone, but his lingering smile remains as looks at you. “Don’t worry your little head. I knew what I was doing. It’s just.... I didn’t know you were going to talk like _that_ Mr. Wizard,” he says. He then taps his chest. “Your excitement nearly gave me a heart attack.”

You mentally groan and feel a wave of embarrassment wash over you (again.) Great…. He could feel your excitement however real or fake it may be. So much for _hoping_ that you could at least keep some of your dignity. 

Dirk smile seems to widen (so that you could now see his left dimple) as if he heard your thoughts.

 

“Come with me,” he says. “I made you breakfast. Unless…. you don’t want any.”

 

It’s an invitation if you ever heard one and you hear yourself scoff. “A gentleman never turns down food,” you say, “Especially if it was made by the skilled hands from the likes of yours.” You feel yourself winking and— _oh gods_ (part two) _did you just what you think you just said to the farmer?_

The surprised look is back on Dirk’s face.

“My hands are skilled then?” Dirk asks and you can literally taste blood as you chomp down, hard, on your tongue to stop yourself from talking. Oh how the mighty have fallen. That is, if you could still call yourself mighty after this catastrophe of a debacle.

Dirk shakes his head. “Crazy spell you got there Rose,” is all he says before he walks away and you feel your feet move against your will as you follow him. Unlike the night before though, the irritatingly happy thoughts of “I’m excited for food!” plagues your brain and you want to hit yourself for these ridiculous thoughts. But, as if your brain has grown a separate mind overnight, your attempts of squashing your giddiness fails spectacularly.

 

At least you stopped talking for now.

 

That is, you would have stopped talking for now if it wasn’t for the hems of your pants catching against your feet and causing you to trip over yourself. Your own pants, old and worn, had shrunk over the many years and had been a little higher than your ankles. These pants were like walking in overgrown shirtsleeves. You never thought you would be one to complain about clothing but all sweet Wind above these things were making walking _impossible._

“Where are my clothes?” you ask as you follow Dirk. Though angry as you are at him, you do wish to know what happened to your green robes and brown tunic. They had been with you since your birth and the thought of him doing anything to them made your heart twinge in fear.

Also you keep tripping on these long monstrosities.

 

As if he can hear your complaints, Dirk stops, turns, and looks at your pants. “You don’t like my clothes?” he asks, gesturing to a chair in his dining room.

 

Or really, his living room.

Technically kitchen too.

The whole room seemed to be a hybrid of three rooms put together. As if he wanted to keep everything in and out of his way so he could dedicate any free space to his other projects. Thinking back on it, the workroom you had slept must’ve also been his guest bedroom because it seems that here, in this kitchen-living room-dining room hybrid, is where Dirk sleeps. If the bed pushed against the corner explains anything. Not exactly the most conventional of houses but then again, your own abode wasn’t exactly the most “conventional” either. 

“An interesting layout you have here old chap,” you hear yourself saying. “And no, your own bloody clothes feel like I’m moving through the mud in the forest! Where are my garments because it feels like two snakes are crawling up and suffocating my poor shanks of legs!”

 

(Oh will you _ever_ be able to stay silent again?)

 

“Washing,” Dirk answers you, but not before you can hear the chuckle in his voice (again.) “They weren’t exactly…. the cleanest things,” he says, scrunching his nose. “And I prefer to have clean robes and clean bodies in my house.”

You hate his laughter. He doesn’t look like the sort of fellow who should be laughing and here you were making him laugh like you were the joke of century! Then again, you probably were.

He points back to the chair. “Sit,” he says, and you feel your feet move over to it and your bum plant itself firmly in its seat. You feel ridiculous.

 

Then you feel panicked.

 

Panicked because if you were wearing his clothes, and your clothes were washing, and he had mentioned liking unsoiled physiques, and you were clean then…then….

“Clean bodies?” you ask, your nervousness seeping into you voice. Dirk looks at you and nods. “Clean bodies,” he says. He then gives you a small smirk. A smirk that tells you that _something_ had happened while you were unconscious. “You weren’t expecting me to let you rest in one of my beds all greasy and grimy were you?” Dirk asks, “Honestly Mr. Wizard, was surprised I didn’t find a tree in your hair with amount of dirt that was in it.” Your face turns red again but for a different reason.

“You washed me?” you hear yourself say in your _definitely_ not baritone voice.

 

Dirk nods.

 

“Y-you bathed me?” you ask and you can’t keep the waver our of your voice because _oh my gods…_

He nods again, “How else was I supposed to get you clean? Besides, I’m only a half-witch Mr. Wizard. You can’t expect to use my magic all the time. I have to do some things _manually._ ” He then moves his gaze from your head, slowly down your torso, and then back up to your face, as if he was…recalling something. “You have some interesting markings on your skin Mr. Wizard. They look like wings,” is all he says but you swear you catch the remains of a light blush and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he turns away. You squirm in your seat.

 

He’s seen you naked. He’s seen you completely exposed.

 

No one had ever seen you naked. Even your Wind had only ever seen you naked once and that was centuries ago when you were first created. No one has ever seen the markings that weren’t the ones present on your face. No one knew about those markings on your body besides your Wind and yourself. And this human had stripped, bathed, washed, and clothed you. Not to mention that you are currently, right now, wearing his clothes.

 

But sweet Wind and Life above, he had seen you _naked_.

You bury your face in your hands, feeling the heat from your cheeks seep into your open palms. “Oh my Wind,” you moan and shudder at the thought of your past nudity.

 

“Your….Wind?”

 

You peer up at Dirk through slightly shifted fingers, trying in vain to press the heat back into your skull. Or at least, trying to _hope_ your embarrassment way.

It doesn’t go away.

Dirk frowns slightly and you can see the question of “Who is that?” hanging from his lips. No, more than that. You can practically feel his curiosity dribbling inside of you and you squirm under his still-way-too-exposed eyes. You don’t like those eyes. Those eyes are too much for you. You’d prefer it if you didn’t see those too intense orange eyes.

As if in understanding, Dirk reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out his shades.

“Don't usually wear them inside,” he tells you. “But if I really make you that uncomfortable….” A small relief passes through you as he places them on his nose. “Better?” he asks. You nod.

“Got some mighty strong peepers there Dirk,” you say. “Sure throws me in all sorts of a tizzy when you look at me.”

Dirk just shakes his head. “I’ll take that as a complement I guess,” is all he says before he walks away towards his kitchen. He returns soon afterwards and places what you can only describe as something that “Looks ugly. Smells great” in front of you. As in it looked like a chicken just vomited on a plate but somehow its aroma all but made up for its appearance.

 

“Omelet with ketchup,” Dirk explains to your (probably) bewildered expression. “May not be the prettiest thing, but it looks like you haven’t eaten in a long time”

 

You’ve never seen food like this before. Well, you’ve had, but never so close to you. You had eaten what the forest gave and most of it you picked off the brush and popped into your mouth. The smells emanating from the plate makes you gulp and your stomach grumbles in betrayal.

Dirk removes something from his wrist, elastic of some kind, and without asking brushes your hair off of your face. You flinch at the contact and growl at him when he pulls a little too tightly. He just smiles and whispers in your ear to eat at your own pace. “Anything you don’t want you don’t have to finish Mr. Wizard.”

It’s a command…but at the same time it gave you enough leeway to do what you want (kind of). You decide to make your “own pace” extremely slow to piss him off.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

Your own (true) pace is alarmingly fast. You can tell Dirk is watching you in fascination as your hands stumble to clutch the spoon and you all bit inhale the food in front of you and you hate it that it tastes so good and that you are so hungry. You hate how the ketchup is getting over your lips and you hate how your go to lick rather than wipe your lips.

“Five minute four seconds,” Dirk says when you pull back and suppress a burp. “You eat too fast Mr. Wizard. Not to mention that you act like you’ve never used a spoon before in your life.” He chuckles again, “It’s like I have an overgrown dog in my house,” he whispers.

 

Like an “overgrown dog” you snarl at him.

 

“Use your words,” Dirk says and some very unpleasant words of him being filled with “Poppycock and bad humor” stumbles out of your mouth before you can stop them. You grit your teeth and use your wretched hand to cover your equally wretched mouth again.

This was going to become a recurring trend wasn’t it?

 

“At least you can still insult me,” Dirk says. “Not that I would want to take away from that interesting tongue of yours. When was the last time you watched TV Mr. Wizard?” 

You have no idea what a “TV” is but the sense that it’s something you’re supposed to know immediately makes you feel uncultured. You press your hand further into you mouth, your teeth biting into skin. To your relief (you think) Dirk seems to understand your discomfort.

“Never mind,” he says. “Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time to watch TV later. But for now,” He leans in close and, moving your plate away, props his hand on the table. “Now I believe its time for you to answer some of my questions Mr. Wizard.”

You brain says “No” but your mouth just breaks into a grin. “Fire away good sir!” you hear yourself say as if you were _excited_ to answer him. Dirk just nods.

“First things first,” he says and you feel your insides begin to quake with terror as your mouth continues to grin. This was it. This was where you were confronted with every past sin you tried to avoid. This is when you’ll be burned by the hands of the villagers for being a horrible Embodiment of _Hope_. You feel your hands tighten into small fists and you brace yourself.

 

“Why were you going to kill yourself?”

 

He asks innocently enough. But you know it can’t be that innocent because in the few times you have spoken to the farmer before, you know that he is cunning and more clever than what everyone gives him credit for. He leans in closer to you and asks, very quietly, “Why Mr. Wizard?” 

* * *

 

You don’t want to answer him but the command is there in his voice, more forceful than it was before, and you find yourself opening your mouth and you cringe at the answer you were about to give but all that comes out is…

“I don’t know.”

 

Dirk frowns.

 

“You…. don’t know?” he asks, “What do you mean by ‘You don’t know’?” Clearly this is not the answer he was expecting.

 

You shrug. “I don’t know….” you say again which surprises you because you did know. You knew exactly what and why you were with your hemlock last night but you don’t know why you can’t tell him. Not to mention that this “I don’t know” feels like the truth. Like you really, truly didn’t know. Did you…. really not know _why_ you were trying to kill yourself? How could you not know yet be in control of the situation at the same time? You frown, confused.

“So…the hemlock. The poison. The everything,” Dirk annunciates. “You don’t know _why_ you did it?

 

You feel yourself nod. “Sorry to upset you chap. But it seems that even my reasoning has left the old think tank,” you say (at least that part is true…. you think.) “I can tell you how I felt if you want but I do not seem to know why I did it.”

Dirk looks at you baffled. He runs a hand through his hair and gets up. “Is this a part of the spell?” you hear him mumble to himself. He then looks back at you. “Stay here,” he commands (you freeze in your seat) and he rushes off down the hall. When he comes back he has a tome in his hands and he sits down a little too quickly. He mutters to himself while he flips the pages and you wonder, for a split second, if he forgot that you were there. You watch as he stops at a page, leans in, and underlines a passage. He frowns.

“Says here you’re telling the truth,” he says looking back up at you. “Which is strange because that doesn’t sound like the truth to me Mr. Wizard. At least, it doesn't sound like the _whole_ truth.”

You gulp and look down. “Well that sure does befuddles the mind does it not Dirk?” you say. “Who knows, it might be me and my _hope_ or you might not be as bloody well versed with magic as you think.” You shove your fist back into your mouth the second you finished talking. Shit.

 

You told him. You fucking told him.

 

“Your…. _hope_?” he asks and you feel yourself nodding again and the fist stops engaging in fisticuffs with your mouth. “Yes my _hope_ Dirk,” you say. “It’s like your _magic_ I suppose but it is…. not?”

“It’s…not?” Dirk asks puzzled. A pang of what feels like a cross between pity and happiness courses through you. Pity because _poor chap_ , he must’ve researched so much before he came here and all that research was for null. And happiness because _score one for you_ , you knew something he didn't.

Still, you are telling him all that he didn't know. So really, score many for him.

Dirk shakes his head. “So do you mean that there is…. _hope_ in you?” You nod your head. “You’re no…. _stealing_ it?” he presses. You nod your head again.

“Haven’t stolen a single thing from this land since I was born. I mean…I haven’t until…well…since…you know…” you look down, ashamed. Dirk frowns and shakes his head again.

“So you haven’t been stealing _hope_?” he asks. “You’re not a…a…thief of _hope_?”

You can't help the bark of laughter that escapes you. “Me? A thief of _hope_? Of course not! Why would I steal from what is me?”

“What 'is' you?” Dirk asks and you really have thrown him into a tizzy. He stands up and closes the tome. “Stay here…again,” he says and scampers off, book in hand. He returns with a larger tome and one that you don’t recognize. He puts it down (with a loud _thunk)_ and flips the pages until he comes across the spell he was looking for.

“Hand,” he says bluntly and you present him with the back of your palm. Holding it in his (you can feel his callouses and you tense, unused to the physical contact) he begins muttering. There’s a jolt of what you can only describe as an electrical, burning, frozen pain that imprints on your hand and you yelp out an undignified “Wind on a sea biscuit!” before, just as soon as it starts, it stops.

“No way,” Dirk mutters. “No fucking way.” He gets up and, right in front of you, begins pacing back and forth. He begins to mutter under his breath, looking back at you a few times. You’re not exactly sure what he is muttering, but the confusion on his face tells you that whatever he got from your handholding was not what he was expecting.

He finally sighs and scoops up the tome again. “We’re not done talking about this,” he says pointing at you. “I just need to…. to…process this.”

You frown. “Process what?” you ask confused.

 

Dirk just sighs. “This. You. Everything. I gotta…. I gotta call Rose...”

 

You have no idea what a “Rose” is (or who a “Rose” is) but you don’t ask as Dirk runs off with his tome again. When he returns (sans book) his bewildered expression has all but vanished, as if he had cast a spell on himself to appear normal.

You growl. Oh how you were envious of his magic. It made you wonder why and how he did it.

 

“Half-witch remember?” Dirk answers, as if you had spoken aloud. “Rose- my sister- taught me everything. She was the one who taught me how to read those tomes and do the spells and stuff.” 

Ah. That would explain what and who the mysterious “Rose” was. “She must be a very powerful young lass,” you say. To your surprise, Dirk responds.

“True, but Rose is anything but young,” he confesses. “Last she told me she was turning one hundred but she still looks like she’s in her twenties. Never did tell me her-” he cuts himself off and a look of surprise passes his face. He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Fucking spell,” he curses. “Seriously I thought…” he sighs and then he moves his gaze back and glares (you think) at you. His stare sends a shudder down your back and you know his next question isn’t going to be a pretty one.

“Who was your Wind?” he asks and yup- You are definitely not comfortable with that question. As if sensing your uneasiness, Dirk continues. “I told you about my family,” he presses.

“So you tell me about this ‘Wind’ you kept talking about.” 

* * *

 

You look down, hunching in on yourself and trying to hide yourself.

“He was…” you hear yourself say. “I mean…. He is-” You grip the edge of the table and shake your head. You can feel the confession pushing up on you, like vomit or bile, building up in your throat. But you force it down. You _hope_ and pray to yourself that it will go down and you hiccup embarrassingly.

“I…” you say meekly. “I…don’t want to talk about the…. Wind,” you choke out. The words burn when you say them and you feel awful for denying Dirk but…. But you can’t. You can’t talk about the Wind. You _won’t_ talk about the Wind.

You look up at Dirk and something it your expression must’ve done something because he _softens_ ever so slightly. “Please….” you say, the denial burning you as you speak, “Please don’t make me talk about…. him.”

It’s a frozen moment. Him looking at you and you looking at him with what must be a pathetic “puppy-dog” expression. He frowns and you can tell he doesn’t like you resisting. Another flaw to his master plan you presume. You two stare at each other, eyes to shades and shades to eyes, before Dirk finally groans.

 

“We are also not done talking about _this,”_ he says. “Don’t expect me to treat you this well the whole time you are under my control Wizard.”

 

You breathe a sigh of relief and you offer him a nervous grin. “Well besides the kidnapping and the mind spell, you’ve been doing a bang-up job of taking care of me Dirk. What with the food and the bedding and such. Hell you even bathed me!” Wherever the hell this statement came from you have no idea, but it catches both you and Dirk off guard. What feels like embarrassment flushes through you and for a split second, you can’t tell if the emotion is from you, Dirk, or you and Dirk.

Dirk looks away. “It’s past eight,” he says. “I have to get to my farm.” He walks past you and reaches for his satchel by the door before turning back. “You coming?” he asks. You blink, once, twice, in confusion.

“You want me to…. come with you to…farm?” you ask alarmed. Dirk shrugs.

 

“If you’re under my control I might as well get some use out of you.” is all he says.

* * *

 

He commands you to help him and you feel an excitement that you haven’t felt in years spill over you, like you actually find interest in helping this pathetic, wretched human. Of course this “pathetic, wretched human” watches you as you skip out of the door after him, a grin on your face and your hands quickly tying a braid in your hair. 

“Never farmed before! This will be capital!” you hear yourself say. And, although the sweet relief of keeping the Wind your secret bubbles inside of you, you still can’t fight the burning humiliation that tickles your cheeks as you speak. You will yourself to not feel this way and to remember what you do not like about farms (They’re dirty. They’re filthy. And this farm in particular that you were about to work on had the memory of your Wind and his lover smothered all of it) but the fucking submission spell is making you feel giddy of all things.

“Where do you want me?” you ask. “Can’t be of much use to you I imagine but I will try my best I suppose!”

(The words. The words won’t stop. Why won’t your words stop?)

 

Dirk nods towards the fields. “Weeding,” he says. “We start with the weeding.”

 

There’s a lot of weeding to start because there’s a lot of weeds. You and Dirk work side by side as Dirk teachers you how to uproot the unwanted plants. Of course you can tell the weeds from the other plants but you’ve never “weeded” before. Usually you let the weeds grow unless they were dandelions that you could use for foods or tea.

“Not too harshly,” Dirk tells you. “Don’t want to upset the actual plant.” He pulls one up and gestures for you to mimic his gesture. You end up ruining six of his spinach plants by accident due to you inexperienced hands, the force you use on uprooting too much for the actual vegetable to handle. The bottom of your pants dampens with wet earth as you stare at another killed life form in your hands. A stab of guilt goes through you and you can’t help the frown tugging down on your lips.

You look nervously at Dirk. “Sorry about that,” you say and chuckle nervously. “Guess farming life’s not for me.”

There’s a strange feeling in you as you watch Dirk shake his head. “Nah it’s…. it’s cool,” he says, not as angry as you had thought he would be. He places a hand on his chest and then shrugs. “Didn’t like spinach that much anyway,” he says, as if he was trying to appease you. “I’ll just replace ‘em with carrots. No big deal.” 

* * *

 

The two of you then move onto watering and fertilizing. Your nose crinkles at the fertilizer’s smell and you don’t want to touch it but a quick “Please Mr. Wizard” has you digging your hands into the filth. You tense in disgust.

Dirk laughs at you and you wish in your still controllable part of your brain that you could fling the literal shit in his face. “You could’ve worn gloves y'know,” he tells you.

You _really_ want to engage fisticuffs with him.

* * *

 

Next comes animal care, which in itself has you tripping and falling. The animals, unused to being tended to so late in the day, caw, squawk, moo, and growl angrily as you follow Dirk into their barns. You’ve never been to a place where animals were made to stay…. indoors. It’s weird. And hot. And smelly. You crinkle your nose again and your glad that the human allowed you to wash your hands of the manure before you came in here. You watch as he calms down the animals, petting chickens, milking cows, and brushing his pet’s furs. He instructs you to collect the eggs (which you do, getting pecked more than once) while he coos over his babies. The chickens squawk angrily at you at first, but a simple touch to the head relaxes them and you can’t help but smile. Even if they weren’t in the forest, the animals still seemed to remember you. Somehow.

It’s when Dirk’s about to lead them out that something strange happens.

One moment he’s pushing his cow outside (muttering the whole time that he wasn’t born twenty five years ago just to be showed up by a cow’s ass every morning) the next moment _you’re_ being pushed outside as the rest of the animals (two cows, one horse, one yak, and four sheep) are head-butting you in your rear area. You make an indignant squeak as the animals push you, out the door, as if you were the ringleader in a merry trope.

Dirk can only shake his head while he watches you. “It’s like you have your own Animal Parade!” he yells.

 

It’s a miracle you don’t get trampled. 

* * *

 

He talks with the villagers next. When he includes you into his conversations and tells the villagers that you were “helping him for the next few seasons”, they all look at you with surprised expressions. “Mr. Wizard!” they exclaim happily, followed by a “I haven’t seen you in seasons!” and a “My how long your hair has grown!”

You’re…surprised. You never thought you meant that much to them (and you never thought they’d track your hair growth.) Perhaps, to their grandparents and great grandparents, you meant something. But to this generation, you barely interacted with them. You merely shrugged at their enthusiasm, embarrassed by their joy. “I’ve been busy,” you say and, to your added surprise, it doesn’t come out in the “Jolly good old sport!” language you had been using with Dirk.

 

(Huh.)

 

“How have you been faring?” you ask. There are a lot more grins than you thought you would see. They respond that things have gotten better. Things have gotten worse. They tell you more of their fears and you attempt to alleviate them by offering them palm readings (which they all accept) and they stare intently at you as you divine them. Some you tell good things. Some bad.

“ _Hope_ may be gone but don’t think we’ve lost _hope_!” is the response you get more than once. You duck our head in embarrassment. “Is that so?” you ask. “That is…nice.”

It is nice. You should be happy for them. They were getting on without you fine. They were surviving despite what you have down. You should feel happy.

 

(You don’t feel happy.)

 

Dirk watches you the whole time. “Didn’t think you’d remember them all,” he tells you, later when he is done and the two of you walk back to his farm. “I thought you’d forgotten about them.”

You shake your head.

“It’s hard to forget about the people you care for,” you say and whether the words came from your own self or from the spell you don’t know because the words don’t feel…. forced. Neither does the confession of,

“They deserve better.”

 

That seems to shut Dirk up and the two of you finish your walk back in silence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see here that submission spells is more like a double edged sword. And Jake is now talking like....Jake again. Dirk is surprised and all like "what the-? how the-? i did not plan this"
> 
> I like writing this. It's nice. I have a lot planned. There is a lot going to happen. EDITING help please. Also thanks for the comments. They're all nice. You guys are nice. Thanks.


	4. Hope and His Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your Wind is kissing a man you do not recognize."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Happy almost February! Back at college again again and ready for action! Typos in this fic? Hopefully not! (uhhh......)

It’s been a week.

A week of early rises and passing out the second you got back. A week of rubbing sleep from your eyes and having the life scared out of you when you saw him, standing by your door like a guard from a fairytale castle. A week of reaching down and weeding, of pushing animals to the pastures, of being forced to forage for items you had always ignored in the forest. And a week of being paraded around in front of the villagers. That was the most humiliating part of your day. Having to show your face to public and being forced to talk when you didn’t want to. When you had tried to ignore their questions and fill their silence with hesitant nods and cast down eyes, Dirk had leaned forward and said, quite forcefully, to you,

 

“Don’t be rude Wizard, use your words.”

And you did. You used your words. They still weren’t in the tone you used around Dirk but the encounters are still more personal than you’re comfortable with.

 

You never realized how much you didn’t talk, didn’t socialize and engage with others, until you were forced to do so. You had always thought you were well acquainted with everyone. You were socially seen and accepted. Maybe some part of your mind there had been the romantic (and crude) idea that because you were a “wizard” to them and were so _different_ from everyone else that they would see you as something…. to be looked on in amazement. Like the mysterious heroes from the stories that your Wind told you and the stories you used to read. You were a real life fairytale character and you had thought that people would be awestruck by you.

How foolish of you to ever think those thoughts. And how foolish of your Wind to feed you fantasies. You were like the resin stuck to the tree of life’s disappointments. Or like the underbelly of a tickled trout, floating against the waves to be picked up and hurled to the grass.

You have never felt more exhausted in your life.

 

Nor more annoyed. Have you mentioned that you were annoyed? You may smile and laugh but it was horrible to do so when there was a part of you that told you that you didn’t want to.

Sometimes you could resist the farmer. Sometimes you couldn’t. Sometimes you couldn’t tell where you began and he ended. Or whose feelings you were feeling. Whose emotions were pulling you.

It’s…terrifying having no idea what is happening. It’s terrifying not knowing what will happen next. It is terrifying not having your feelings to yourself and being so _open_ like this.

 

And it’s _terrifying_ to not be alone again. 

* * *

 

There is a way the farmer holds himself that infuriates you. Always acting like he knew everything even though he was so so _so_ young. He was baby compared to your Wind and you. A baby that could somehow use magic that you never felt before. A baby who pressed all the buttons in your metaphoric soul.

Always trying to guess your next thought or move and pouting everyone time you did something that tripped him up. Whenever you were about to say something a smirk would appear on his face and his eyes would do that thing where they seemed to glow like the ass of a firefly. He seemed to enjoy your words and makes subtle jokes at the “persona” you created for yourself. “Wizard,” he tears the word apart with his hands and feet and there’s that look he gets on his face whenever he does.

 

And his eyes freak you out. Have you mentioned that you hate his eyes?

 

You hate his eyes. They’re unnatural and remind you of the golden eyes of the animals that hunted at night. Dangerous with hunger and hungry with danger. Like the perfect villain that a hero must slay. You hate his hair too. And you hate his hands. And you hate how, though only a few inches from your height, he seems to tower over you. 

You hate his body in general. Everything about him is so…. so….

 

Spiky.

 

Yes! That’s what it was!

 

He’s like a confused hedgehog that decided one day to turn into a human. But did it the wrong way and didn’t turn into a regular human. He instead turned into a very mean human. A very very mean human who smirked too much, held in his laughter, and who wore dark glasses because his fucking eyes were like two burning stars. On his face. Two burning stars from the underworld on his face that wrapped around you and choked you like a snake.

He is a weird human. A weird hedgehog human. A weird snake human. A weird hedgehog snake human. He is a fucking chimera and you want nothing more then to push him over the edge, whatever this “edge” you thought of was.

He is a baby hedgehog snake chimera being _thing_.

He’s…actually a bit indescribable.

 

You hate him. You despise him. You wish you could shove him into a lake and let him drown and rot there. Or worse, convince one of his animals (that chestnut horse he loved probably) to run away from him so it could break his heart. That would show him. That would make his face shut up (Yeah.). That would introduce him to a smidgen of the pain you felt. Maybe then he would also stop his assumptions about you.

Maybe then he would stop trying to make you talk about your Wind.

 

Your wonderful Wind who’s name you refuse to utter in his presence. The Wind who was…who _is_ …Nothing like him.

 

He had tried multiple times but there’s this block. It's a block that you hold onto for dear life and one he can’t seem to pass. You can tell that the farmer, after a week of your ignorance and smiles and avoidance of every personal question that could dissect you, is beyond pissed at you. It’s only been a week but his shoulder sag and stiffens as if he’s been working for seasons. He tries so bloody hard but only seems to go in circles with himself over you.

You aren’t what he expected. You were the wild card in his deck. He grows annoyed and you can guess that your voice and tone also become tooth and nail on stone to him because one day he asks you to shut up and did not give you permission to speak until the next day. He was fuming that day and did a good job at hiding it.

It absolutely infuriates him and you can't help but enjoy seeing how stressed he becomes.

 

At least, you think you enjoy watching him feel humiliated. 

* * *

 

“Get up.”

 

A slipper hits your face and you bolt upwards. Dirk frowns at you and tells you to hurry up. “Another busy day today Wizard.”

You pull yourself up and give him a shrug and a grin (the grin is unintentional).

 

“Well when is it not a busy day for you Dirk?” you ask and you can tell your voice is like nails on a chalk board for him. “You are the most busy person I know.”

 

Today must be one of those days that you irritate him like hemlock because he grimaces and his fingers tighten into fists that he snaps to his side. “You don’t know a lot of people then,” he mutters. It was an insult and, judging by the way he refuses to look at you, he’s still very annoyed. A small victory for you, you assume.

It’s the opposite of your relationship with the Wind and you could only hope that you could find a reverse spell. That or somehow bargain your way out of it. Though how effective your bargaining would be you were unsure.

“Weed the fields and water them,” Dirk says as you reach for your work clothes (you have yet to regain your robes and a part of you suspects Dirk was studying them and trying to find their magic priorities. Joke was on him though because they were just regular clothes.) “I’m going to let my animals out. We eat after we’re done.”

You give a short salute. “Aye ye sir!” you say happily.

 

Dirk doesn’t even spare you a backwards glance. 

* * *

 

You had been tired that night when you had that dream.

 

The day had ended and you and Dirk had been equally exhausted. Your mind had been pushed and pulled and you wanted nothing more than to return to your home.

 

Your home. Your real home. This was the longest you’ve been away from your home. From your forest home and your house home. Oddly enough, you missed them. You never thought you would miss a location that you could just go to at any time. A location that you had always taken for granted. But here in the human’s house to where you are confined, you missed them. You missed the seclusion that your home gave you from the eyes of others. You miss being able to read book after book at your own pace. You even miss how the villagers used to come for you for advice even though your last visitor had come seasons ago. (You wonder if his animals are all right.)

Most of all though, you miss being able to see the stars at night. You were too tired these days to watch the stars. Hours in the fields, with the animals, trailing after Dirk as he talked to the villagers and foraged in only the opening of the forest had left you feeling drained and exhausted in a way you haven’t been in a long time. It wasn’t hard work but it was _tedious_ work. It was work that required concentration and no breakage of pattern. Of course when you lived by yourself you had also done the tedious work of practicing spells and gathering herbs, but there had been a comfort when you did these things. A comfort that you were doing them for your own good.

Now you were basically a laborer for the farmer.

 

And you still miss the stars.

Sometimes to remind yourself of them, you’d whisper out the constellations to yourself. Gemini with its loop, Scorpio with its tail, Leo that always looked more like a mouse than a lion, Cancer with its splitting ends like a child’s toy slingshot.

If you whispered what they looked like to yourself it was as if you could almost see them again.

But the night you have _the dream_ you had closed your eyes and not a single constellation or star passed through your mind. Not a single thought had gone through you besides, _“Sleepy.”_

* * *

 

Your Wind is kissing a man you do not recognize.

He’s kissing him in a way that you’ve never seen your Wind kiss before. It’s not on the forehead, like he did with you, or on the hand, like he did with the female villagers, it is on the man’s mouth. They are kissing so ferociously that you can feel their passion from where you stand. Though you do not know where you stand. You can feel it, it’s heat that is too warm for comfort but not warm enough. It’s a warmth that felt cold somehow.

You’ve never seen two people kiss like that. 

Your Wind removes himself from the man and bites his lip. “That wasn’t too bad…was it?” he whispers but you can hear it. However far away from you he is and however soft his voice is, you can still hear that sweet tongue of his again. You can hear _him_ again.

 

A memory. You’re in a memory right now.

 

Something is hurting inside of you and when you look down you see that’s it’s _you_ hurting you. Hurting by grasping your shirt and the skin beneath it so tight that it bruises you.

You look up to them again.

 

The man, the man your Wind was kissing, shakes his head. “No. Fuck no. No to the third degree of nope. Windy blue that was good. Very good. Hella good. Gods you're a kissing maniac and I am an unworthy fan of your lip affection.”

“Better than last time?” your Wind asks nervously.

“A million times better. Not that last time wasn’t good but you actually got my lips this time so…yeah…” the man grins. “Fucking gold star for you.”

Your Wind looks at the human, confused.

“But…stars aren’t gold Dave. Stars aren’t even _made_ out of gold,” he says and the way his voice goes up in that confused way is so familiar and so painful to…. to hear again. “Stars are mainly made out of hydrogen and helium. And gold is one of the noble metals that is said to-”

Your Wind is then suddenly cut off by the man kissing him again. You frown. How rude, cutting the Wind off like that with no respect for his words. Not to mention he is touching your Wind in a way that is making him let out soft groans of…torment? No…it was….Groans of discomfort?

No. Not that either. Not…. not discomfort. Of something else. Something filled with longing. Something dangerous.

Something…. lustful.

 

“Dave…” your Wind whispers when they separate again. He’s breathing heavily and all thoughts of gold and stars must have left his head. “Dave please…”

“Please what almighty powerful Windy?” Dave asks leaning back on the balls of his feet. “What is it you desire?” There’s a cheeky grin on his face and he plays with the hair of your Wind. He runs his hand through his dark curls and the grip on your chest tightens and bruises more and the tips of your fingers ache. There’s a silence before your Wind breaths out his answer.

“You,” your Wind says. “I want you. All of you. _I want you Dave_ ”

His words hang in the air, riding on the back of the hidden longing in the room. “I want you Dave,” he whispers again. “ _I want you.”_

 

This makes Dave stop.

 

He freezes.

 

He becomes cold and frozen. Body shattering ice immediately replaces the warmth you felt. He looks at your Wind, and then looks away. Looks back at your Wind, then away again. He opens his mouth several times, closes it, and then squeezes his eyes shut. He then begins to slowly back away, shaking his head.

 

You frown. He seems to be distressed somehow. He seems to be in _pain_ some how.

 

“I…I can’t…” he says as he continues to shake his head. “I…. Oh fuck. I can't…” Dave seems to shrink and minimize under the gaze of your Wind, as if his body was trying to cave in on itself. _Protect himself._

“Listen your Windy highness but we’re moving a little fast here aren’t we? I mean don’t wanna overwhelm you after you just mastered the art of kissing a Vantas-Strider…. But I….” he turns away and you know your Wind can’t see his expressions but you can. You can see the confusion, the hurt, and the _pain_ written on his face. But you also see something else. Something that makes you want to grasp Dave by the shoulders and crush him into you. Makes you want to hug him and protect him, even though he was what took your Wind away. Even though he stole your Wind.

 

You see utter, complete _self-hate_ on his face. And it’s ugly and dangerous and you want to wipe away.

 

“Sorry I just…busy day today,” Dave says and you watch he chokes on his own voice, suppresses a gasp, and gestures towards your Wind, all while not looking at him. “Busy day tomorrow. Busy day everyday actually. I…I should probably rest the ol’ peepers before they hit their expiration date. If I lose these things then I’m screwed aren’t I? Should back this stallion into the barn. And when I say ‘stallion’ I mean me and when I say ‘barn’ I mean the place where I park my ass at night. I-I should go and park it right now before it breaks. Can’t return my ass y’know and I only got one.”

He speaks in the same rambling tongue that you remember he used to speak in and your Wind looks…disappointed as he speaks. As if he knows the deception and he dislikes that Dave is doing it.

There’s a silence that overtakes the two. Neither of them move and neither of them say anything but it’s a silence that tells you that this, this rambling and this self-hate, has happened before.

 

“You’re still thinking about him aren't you Dave?” your Wind says softly. Dave stops, wheezes (as if he’s been punched in his stomach) and finally, _finally_ glances back at your Wind. He bites his lip and an ashamed look passes by his face.

 

“You are aren’t you?” your Wind says. “You said ‘ _Vantas-Strider’_ again and you only use that when you’re…,” your Wind’s voice trails off and there’s a moment where his unspoken hang in the air. Another silence follows but it’s one that has both men staring and staring at each other. Your Wind then takes two steps forward and leans in closer to Dave. “Please…. tell me,” he softly urges, gripping Dave’s shoulders. “You never tell me why you always pull away whenever we become close but _please._ Please Dave. _Tell me_.”

Dave looks as if the world is falling apart around him. You can feel his _hope_ draining from him as his minds pushes, pulls, and argues with itself. There’s a twitch in his body, as if he wasn’t sure to back away from your Wind or hold him closer. You can see him thinking and _thinking_ about questions of the past or the future. The dead or the living. His deceased lover or your Wind.

 

He's in so much pain and you hate watching it.

 

When he finally speaks his voice is weak. Weaker than it was only a few mere minutes ago. Weak and missing all the finesse and happiness that it held.

“Fuck Windy look I….” Dave stumbles. He chokes. He gasps. He shakes like he’s still frozen solid within. “I-I like you. I really really fucking like you. Hell I might fucking _love_ you maybe but…. but…” He looks tortured as he tries to say the next words. As if they got caught in his throat and he has to vomit them out _painfully._

“But you’re still thinking about him. Right?” your Wind finishes. “You’re still thinking of him.”

 

There’s an angry twitch in your Wind’s voice that make his words become slightly clouded and less…. innocent. It twists it and it makes your Wind sound almost _jealous._

 

Dave stumbles again. Gasps again. Shakes again. And then finally nods again. “I am,” he says. “I am still thinking of him. Shit Windy it’s just….” He has to take several deep, long breaths before he says anything. As if the words he’s about to say have transformed into knives in his throat. They sound like knives too once he speaks them: sharp, harsh, and tinged with sadness that could cut anyone up and put anyone down.

“You ever lived your whole life thinking that you would never be with that someone you love?” Dave asks quietly. “You ever spent _years and years_ of just wanting to tell him that you are fucking enamored and smitten and head over heels in love with him but you can’t work up the courage to just to spit it out? You ever been so scared that that someone will leave you because he found someone else? You ever had to deal with being so deep in the friend zone that you can’t tell up from down and right from wrong? You ever been so fucking loved by someone but think that love wasn’t real? You ever been right next to someone but feel so lonely at the same time?” Dave trembles as he speaks and you can see that the words he is saying are like poison to him.

 

You…. understand his words. You understand what he is talking about. You had spent time, so much fucking time, finding reasons to dislike him and wallowing in your bitterness…But now you understood him exactly.

 

Having someone you loved taken from you. Having a connection severed. Feeling out of place, out of touch, and so very _alone._

 

“And then…” Dave continues. “Then after years and years of pining like a school girl with a school crush and thinking that even looking at him is a _sin_ , do you know how fucking _wonderful_ it is to have that person tell you that he loves you too and has always loved you?” Dave suffocates and falls over himself and has to take more breaths that sound too rushed and too quick to be healthy. You want to tell him to stop before he hurts himself but he _continues._

_“_ Do you know what that’s like? To have your love reciprocated? I fucking _cried_ when Karkat told me he loved me Windy. He told me he loved me and I _cried_ because I was so _damn happy!_ ” Dave looks as if he would start crying again, right then and there, but to your surprise he just keeps _talking._

“I fucking _cried_ when Karkat agreed to marry me! I fucking _cried_ like a _baby_ when Karkat told me that he would love to grow old with me on this island planting veggies and taking care of cows and shit! I…fuck Windy….”

 

He’s in pain. So much pain. _And you can’t do anything to stop him_.

 

“Karkat was _everything_ to me and…and now…. He’s not here and I can’t…” Dave takes a deep breath before yelling, actually yelling, “ _I can’t fucking cry anymore!_ ”

 

His eyes are filled with such agony that your Wind’s breath hitches. “I haven’t been able to _cry_ at all!” Dave yells in a dismayed wail. “I can’t _cry._ Do you know how shitty and horrible it is to have the best thing in your life taken from you and you can’t get your eyes to spray out the salty liquid of remorse because you _can’t cry anymore!?_ ”

 

Dave then stops. Finally stops. He sounds like he is hyperventilating and his hands have tightened into fists. Fists that wanted to punch something. Fists that wanted to punch himself for not being able to shed tears anymore. Fists that wanted to hurt. 

Your Wind gazes at Dave, in his broken, destroyed state. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. He only looks, as if trying to tell Dave with his eyes that everything _is all right_.

 

You’re not surprised when it doesn’t work.

* * *

 

Your Wind then slowly, slowly shakes his head.

“I do not…. completely understand Dave,” he says carefully. “I cannot imagine…What you have been through. And I am so sorry you lost Karkat.” Your Wind extends one of his hands out to Dave, as if he was meeting a baby doe for the first time in the spring. It’s a protective, a hesitant, and a very, _ver_ y cautious gesture. “But I do know,” he says. “I do know that…it’s not right to forget about happiness.” He offers Dave a small smile.

 

“Please,” he whispers. “Dave let me help you. Let me help.”

 

Dave looks at your Wind and you can tell by his expression that he isn’t seeing your Wind anymore. He’s looking through him, to the fields, to the meadows, to the oceans beyond his house. He stares all the way until his gaze falls onto his late-husband’s tombstone.

There all alone. All by itself. All by himself.

 

“We can't keep doing this,” Dave says in a defeated tone. “We shouldn’t be doing this when I’m…. When I _can’_ t give you everything you want.”

 

Your Wind’s smile drops and there’s that same twinge that you saw and felt before. That same jealousy. He lowers his empty hand and pulls it against himself. The moment is broken and with it, whatever _hope_ your Wind had of helping the farmer.

“I guess that’s my queue to leave then,” your Wind says sadly. He walks towards the door, hands clenched, and with a look of dismay his face. “I guess I’ll see you around,” he whispers.

 

“Sure. Whatever,” Dave mumbles but he’s not looking at your Wind. His gaze had fallen and he was now staring at something on his finger. Something small, shiny, and golden.

It’s…a golden ring. A shimmering ring. But he’s looking at it as if it means more than that.

 

Your Wind sighs and you can see that the wisp of air he breathes out has gone and encircled the farmer protectively. Almost like a blessing.

“My sister,” your Wind suddenly says in a soft voice. “My sister…. Life…. she was all I had. She was all I knew and she…. When she passed on…It hurt me Dave. She was my family so…” He looks back up and, although Dave isn’t looking at him, says,

 

“I know how you feel.” 

* * *

 

There’s something blocking your sight and you gasp as you feel a sadness that isn’t quite yours and isn’t quite anyone else’s in your heart. You can’t breathe and you sit up in your bed, blindly grabbing at nothing in front of you.

You’re crying. At least, you think you’re crying. You aren’t sure and-

Nope, those are tears. You’re crying. Really crying. You’re sobbing as if the human in your dream had given you all the tears he wanted to weep. The human in your memory had given you his sadness.

 

A wave of nausea hits you. Then another. By the third hit you feel yourself rise, vision still blurred, and stumble to Dirk’s bathroom, knocking over a stack of books on your way. They tumble and crash but you’re not paying attention as brace yourself against cold porcelain (When did that get there?) and-

 

Oh…

 

You’re vomiting into the toilet.

 

When did that happen? You don't remember ever vomiting before. Have you ever vomited before? At least you had the sense to do it in a place where you could literally flush it away later. But still, why do you feel so…pained yet not painful right now? It’s as if you stole someone else’s pain because it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to you but it is, right this moment, happening. You can feel your throat being scratched as you retch into the toilet but it’s like your not…. _there_ at the same time.

What was this?

Gods your throat hurts. And you feel too hot. And cold. Why do you feel this ridiculously cold? And this hot? It’s like you're a piece of raw meat twisting on top of a burning spit. Never cooked correctly on either side. Hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot-

 

You are vaguely aware of Dirk’s presence in the room as he suddenly appears to watch you. Of course you would wake him up. You were like his ticking clock set to chime when the moment was right. A true epitome of “What the fuck’s going to happen next?”

He leans down next to you and you can see a look of concern out of the corner of your eyes as he takes in your tears, your bile, and your trembling state. You can also see his eyes, those bright oranges, piercing into you.

 

“Hey…Are you…?” he begins before stopping himself as you choke on nothing but your own filthy lungs.

 

You look up, a drop of vomit dipping from your lips to your chin before creating a long string that drips to the floor. Dirk grimaces as he watches you, probably disgusted at how you look (and how you smell.) It’s a commiserating look and one that has you quickly trying to replace.

 

As much as you dislike him, you've seen enough brokenness in your dreams to last you a lifetime.

 

“Nothing to worry about old chap,” you mumble. “Feeling a bit strange right now but should pass in a minute. Go on back to bed. Busy day tomorrow and all and you need your-”

Your cut off by another wave of queasiness and you heave (unfortunately) at Dirk’s feet. You pull back and manage to get most of your remaining retch into the toilet.

 

Most. Dirk’s feet now have a splattering of your goop on them. Shit.

 

The only bright side to this whole thing, you muse, is that at least you have stuff to throw up now. Dirk’s been feeding you (force-feeding you? Was it even forceful if he told you to “Eat if you wanted to” and most of the time you wanted to? Gods you don’t know and your head hurts too much to think about it) so you no longer have to worry about living off of tealeaves and coffee beans.

 

Still it must be unpleasant to watch where all his extra food is going.

 

Dirk frowns and you know that he is seeing through your lies because of your current sick state and because of the spell he put on you. Ugh, this stupid spell business was annoying when you can’t feel your insides. You wish that you could get him out of you somehow. Or you don’t wish that. Or you do. It’s…. getting difficult to discern what you like and don’t like anymore.

All you know is that you enjoy yet hate having him here pitying you right now.

 

There’s a silence between you two and its not until you feel empty, cold, and paper thin that you lean back and breathe ragged breaths, in and out. Dirk fully sits down next to you as you reach over to flush the toilet, filling the previous silence of the room with a _whoosh_ noise.

You two do not speak for what feels like a very long time. 

* * *

 

You pull your knees to your chest, wishing to curl in on yourself and will this pain away, when Dirk whispers very softly to you, in a pleading voice,

 

“Don’t lie to me Wizard please…. How do you feel?”

 

It’s in such a soft, _heart_ felt voice that the urge to lie to him really does quell and swells down in you. You consider your options of staying silent and resistance or being compliant before deciding you had enough of an emotional headache for one day (er, night you suppose.) You brace both your hands on the tile of the bathroom floor and just let the Dirk in your mind take over.

“I feel quite wretched,” you confess. You close your eyes and tip your head back. “I feel like my insides are trying to evacuate the inner workings of my body and whatnot.”

 

There’s a grunt next to you, as if Dirk understands what you are talking about, before there is a slight warmth near your exposed neck. Hesitantly, and with caution, you feel the heat melt into calloused fingertips that stay, only for a moment, on your skin. Dirk mutters something that you can’t quite hear but its effect is immediate: warm, cool, and comforting. Much better than what you were feeling a second ago.

You can’t help but smile at him. The feeling felt too good not to smile to.

 

“Thanks chap,” you mutter, opening your eyes and meeting his gaze. “Your magic never ceases to amaze me.”

Dirk hums in acknowledgement (his face flushing ever so slightly as you complement his magic. Huh.) and moves his hand away from you.

 

“I used to do something like this too,” he says, as if coming to the conclusion that it was now his turn to get something off his chest. “The whole ‘not telling people I wasn’t feeling well’ bit and I guess…” he trails off and stares at the space behind you before saying, “I don't want you to lie to me.”

“Roger,” you mutter immediately. “I will try not to.” One of your hands moves as if to give him a thumbs-up but stops itself when it brushes against something slimy, wet, and altogether unpleasant. Your eyes widen as you realize with horror that vomit now covered the tip of your poor braid and is now swinging around, flinging your insides everywhere. You grimace in disgust.

 

Your braid will never forgive you.

 

Dirk seems to notice your discomfort. He raises himself up again and, taking a hand towel, wets it with sink water before returning to your side. With trusting eyes, he takes your braid and begins wiping the gunk (your gunk) out.

“That’s not what I meant,” he mutters as brushes your mess out of your hair. You don’t understand what he’s talking about but you are glad that he is looking after you right now.

 

It creates another smile on your face and sends a trill of warmth inside of you.

 

* * *

 

You two sit in silence as Dirk works on your hair. He’s surprisingly gentle as he combs the remaining vomit out of you and you can’t help but feel….happy? It’s…nice being doted on in this kind of way. Like you’re being… cared for.

It reminds you of your Wind but…not. It doesn’t hold the same feeling as it did before. It’s not with the same lightness and not with same softness. It’s deep, bold, and feels so much more…. affectionate. 

What feels like hours (even though it is only minutes) pass like this and, in the few times that you catch his eyes as he works, you feel your ears become colored and your cheeks become tinted. When he’s done his hands are still on your hair, touching it as if he’s never seen a braid before in his life.

 

“Bad dream?” he suddenly asks. He looks up at you, meets your gaze and holds it. You can't nod right now so you instead answer with a, “Yes. How did you know?”

His face is very close to yours and he looks away again, back to your hair.

 

“Felt it,” Dirk mumbles. “Didn’t know what you dreamed about but I…felt parts of it.”

 

Your eyes widen and even though he is barely touching you, it's like you've been burned. A wave of guilt and panic hits you and you let a strangled gasp (more like a cry) and you pull yourself backwards quickly, hair slipping out of his grip. You feel your back hit the wall right behind you and you have to gnaw on your lips to prevent yourself from gasping (crying) again. There’s a quick moment where you stare at him and only him before you look down, ashamed.

You didn't want him to see that part of your history, however unrelated or related to you it was.

 

“D-did you-?” you stutter in a small voice. “Did you…. see anybody?”

 

A pause. A too long silence. And wet braid hitting your neck. Your knees are the only things you see in your line of vision.

Then, Dirk speaks.

 

“Yeah…. I did,” he says but his voice is sad as if he’s remembering his feelings as well. As if, like you, those feelings were his yet distantly someone else’s. “Someone who is…. _was_ a farmer. I think I saw…the past owner of this house.”

You feel yourself shrinking into the wall as he speaks. Dave. He had seen that Dave human. Yet he hadn't said he saw your Wind so maybe…. maybe he wouldn’t ask you about him. Honestly with your mind the way it was right now, you’d be willing to answer any question, no matter how personal.

Dirk must know. He must know how vulnerable you are. He must know how easily he can get answers out of you. He must know and he must just want to _ask_ you anything and everything. You close your eyes and feel the wall press into you, terrified of what might come next.

Yet for some reason, even though you know he can see how weak you are now, he doesn’t ask the questions you thought he would ask. He doesn’t even make a veiled attempt to do so. He just…. sits there. Sits there and waits until you open your eyes again and offers you an almost welcoming smile.

 

His next words are more comforting to you than his hair bathing had been.

 

“Would you like to rest tomorrow?” he asks. “Technically its today but still, if you want to sleep more I won’t hold it against you.”

You frown at him, confused by his willingness to…. to help you. “Do you not need me to work though?” you ask. “What about your plants and animals?”

Dirk shakes his head.

“Don’t want you to work when you’re not feeling well Wizard,” he says. “I’m not going to force you to do something when you’re clearly not up for it.”

You can’t help but notice that his smile reaches up to his eyes and lights them up like two fucking stars. A slight chuckle passes by your lips. How funny to think that the eyes you hatefully compared to the stars could now be fondly called “stars.” Out loud you say, “You are surprisingly kind when you choose to be.”

 

There’s a slight hitch in Dirk’s breath and suddenly the smile in his eyes are gone. “I’m usually kind,” he retorts. “You just bring out the worst in me.”

Another chuckle out of you. “I’ll consider myself lucky then,” you say. “For being the first to see this side of you.”

Dirk can only shake his head and sigh, as if remembering who he is and who you are.

 

“Interesting way of interpretation,” he mutters before standing up. He wipes the bile from his feet with the used towel and then turns towards the bathroom door. “That mind of yours is mighty strange Wizard.”

He leaves you alone and you can’t help the smile on your lips as you whisper, to yourself and only yourself,

 

“I like to call it…. unique.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG THANKS TO PUMPKIN FOR LISTENING TO MY SHITTY VOICE PROOFREAD THIS!!!!!!! Seriously thank you and sorry you had to listen to me ramble!

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO, Look at this face and agree with me in the wonders of braided hair jake. FIGHT ME ON THIS: 
> 
> http://fogu.com/hm/animal_parade/bachelors.php#wizard


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